


Obviously

by heymacareyna



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: All Human AU, College AU, F/M, Gen, Multi, Pretty Much Everyone is Alive, leo grows up, rape is backstory, reyna likes jason in the beginning, student government jeyna, student troublemakers liper
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-30
Updated: 2015-04-27
Packaged: 2018-03-09 17:22:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 29
Words: 98,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3258149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heymacareyna/pseuds/heymacareyna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>College AU. Best friends Reyna and Jason rule student government, while best friends Leo and Piper wreak havoc as the campus troublemakers. But when Jason and Piper get together, the four of them begin to spend a lot of "quality time" together-and uncover why the rival university burned to the ground. Jasper and Leyna, with side Percabeth and Frazel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Irregularity

University life was straightforward, reliable, regular. Monotonous, some might even say. But Reyna Ramírez-Arellano—only Reyna to the rest of campus, because who really wanted two last names?—had it under control, and that was far more important than having excitement.

She waited by the door for Annabeth Chase to finish debating her quiz grade with Professor Lupa. Eventually the blonde trailed over, lips pursed and ponytail bouncing against her backpack. The two girls nodded in sync at the prof and then let themselves out of the classroom so the next class's students could stream in.

"I just don't see why a question that was only a sidebar in the reading should be worth ten points," Annabeth complained. "If I get a B in this class, my GPA will tank. My mother will kill me.  _I_  will kill me."

Reyna's lips barely quirked upward. Grade anxiety—something else regular. But they were only in the second week into fall semester, not nearly late enough to ruin their academic careers. "Right. You know, it's really next year that'll tank your GPA."

"Don't remind me. But there will at least be a lot of actual design involved." Annabeth brightened a little at this thought. She was a transfer student majoring in architectural design, but she was a junior like Reyna, and the challenge of upper-level classes really only fueled her pride.

A lean guy with messy black hair and a mischievous grin rode by on his skateboard, planting a kiss on Annabeth's cheek as he passed. "Percy!" she complained, but he only grinned and kept going.

Percy Jackson was a transfer as well, Reyna knew. She'd contemplated him briefly when she first met him, but he and Annabeth had been together for years, and he'd had zero interest. Probably for the best—his skateboarder attitude was a little more rebellious than she could trust.

"And that damn assignment's going to kill me," Annabeth continued. "Two chapters to read  _and_  an essay to draft? I don't even want to know what Mr. D will be assigning in World Mythology." She straightened her pencil skirt and, when they came to the end of the hall, pushed the door open with her outstretched arm.

The crisp fall air stung a little at Reyna's face and bare arms.  _I knew I should have worn a jacket,_  she scolded herself. "At least World Mythology will be interesting," Reyna said, pointedly staring at a freshman named Dakota who was giving them both the once-over.

He turned red and turned away to gulp something that didn't look like Kool-Aid.

She returned her attention to their path to the student center. "We're where, now? The chapter on Ancient Greece?"

The blonde nodded. "Are you coming to lunch?"

They pushed through the double-doors to the lower level of the student center. "Can't; I have to work," Reyna said. She liked Annabeth, but she loved her student government job. It was something else she knew and could control. "How about lunch tomorrow?"

"Sounds great! See you at two, then." Annabeth smiled and waved before heading upstairs to the cafeteria, and Reyna walked around the staircase to the hallway just past the post office. Students milled around in throngs, torn between the need for coffee and mail and the need to get to class on time, but when she came near the masses parted for her to pass. She glided by with her chin high; heads turned and even conversations quieted to watch her go.

Hitching her book bag strap over her shoulder, she turned a corner and clenched her jaw: the Latino boy from Spanish club and World Mythology (how had he managed to worm his way into her schedule  _twice_?) was waiting outside the student government offices again, wearing a stained T-shirt and a grin that seemed to split his face in half. His presence was one regularity she would have liked to dispose of.

"Are you from Tennessee?" he called to her as she came near. "'Cause you're the only  _ten I s_ —"

"Move," Reyna ordered, brushing past him to get into the office and then shutting the door firmly behind her. He peered in through the front wall, which was mostly glass, but she ignored him as she dropped her bag on the floor, folded herself into her favorite rolling chair, reached into her desk, and pulled out a few files she needed to sign. She tilted her desk label toward him— _PRESIDENT_ , the wooden plaque said, in all caps—in case he thought he was messing with some underling.

A low laugh came from the next desk over, and she looked up to see her vice president, Jason Grace, smile and wave at the other guy.

"You know him?" she asked shortly, flicking her long braid over her shoulder as she stared, hard and unfriendly, out the window.

A tan girl with choppy hair came by and dragged the boy away, and once they'd disappeared Jason turned to look at Reyna. She looked him right in the eye, mostly so that she wouldn't linger on things like his broad shoulders or the scar on his lip. You would think that after ten years of being best friends, she would have calmed down about such things, but unfortunately you would be mistaken. As it was, she operated around the problem like she did most others involving feelings: she ignored it and hoped it would eventually go away.

"Yeah, he's a good guy," Jason said, but Jason said this about almost anyone at Apollo University, so Reyna's eyebrows jumped but she didn't bother to argue. "He's from Central."

That explained why she didn't know his name. Central University had burned down over the summer, so many of its commuter students—including Annabeth and Percy—had transferred to Apollo simply because it was only ten minutes away.  _Some_  of those students, Reyna was certain, would have done better to find somewhere else to get an education.

"His name's Leo," Jason continued, "I think he's a chemistry, no, engineering major. He's pretty funny, once you get past the bad puns."

"Uh- _huh_." Pulling a granola bar out of her book bag, she went back to flipping through the papers to find the blank lines she needed to sign, and they fell into companionable silence.

They worked through the lunch hour and then some, and at ten til two, Reyna began to pack everything back up into her desk.

"You ready to go?" she asked, and when Jason gave a bright  _yep_  she stood, slung her bag over her shoulder, and stared at him as he leisurely did the same. The muscles in his arms and shoulders pulled at his Superman T-shirt—not that she cared. They were just friends. Best friends. And platonic roommates. If they were to become anything more, they would have already. Right?

She blinked back into the present and found him staring back at her, a quizzical smile on his lips. "You ready to go?" he asked.

"Yeah," she sighed.

He held the door open and let her walk through before he followed, and they walked side-by-side into the scattered crowd.

Unlike her trip toward their office, however, the reaction was split. Those closer to her drew back and averted their eyes, like before, but those closer to Jason brightened and reached out for him, as though they could gain some of his virtue by touching the hem of his sleeve.

"Hey, Jason!"

"How's it going, Jason?"

"You look really nice, today, Jason!"

And if that wasn't unreasonable enough, he smiled and touched right back. "Hey, Michael. Good, Gwen, you? Thanks, Drew, you too!" Reyna would have been surprised that he knew all their names if that weren't ridiculously regular. As far as she knew, not a single person at Apollo University (or possibly anywhere else, for that matter) disliked him.

The masses dispersed as Reyna and Jason swept outdoors, where the wind had picked up and Reyna realized she should have had more than a granola bar for lunch. Now slightly grumpy, she looked down to root around her book bag for a second one, or a bag of jelly beans, or  _something_  to eat before World Mythology. Mr. D did bring great snacks when he could be bothered to show up to class, but he was about as reliable as the weather, and she would depend on him as soon as she stopped carrying an umbrella around on sunny days.

"Here you go." Someone matched their pace on her other side, a hand holding out a sandwich wrapped in plastic wrap. Reyna looked up into the slightly smug smile of Annabeth.

"Thanks." She took the sandwich, peeled the plastic wrap off the top, and bit down: creamy peanut butter and strawberry jam. Good, though it could be improved by more of both toppings, and possibly a sprinkling of jelly beans. But it was an understandable omission, since only Jason knew about her attachment to putting jelly beans on regular food, so she simply appreciated the gesture.

Percy wheeled up on Jason's other side and then kicked his skateboard up into his hands, slipping into a walk as easy as breathing. "Sup, man," he grinned, clapping the blond on the back as he too fell into step. The four of them in a row now took up most of the sidewalk, but no one tried to split off into pairs. It was the four of them, always the four of them, for this one class at least. The rest of the time, it was mostly just her and Jason. But she was okay with that.

"How's your Ancient Greek?" Jason asked Percy, who gave him a thumbs-up.

"Awesome, given that everything in this school is Greek," he joked. " _Apollo_  University, with sports teams named the  _Demigods_ —"

"Apollo was Roman," Reyna said, leaning forward to look around Jason at Percy.

"Um, he was Greek first."

"He was Roman in the end, given that Rome conquered Greece. Decisively."

" _Guys_ ," Jason sighed as they swung automatically into a single-file line to get into the philosophy building. First room on the right—World Mythology. Mr. D was late as usual, so the students had parked on top of the tables for a few blessed minutes of non-academics.

Besides the subject matter, Reyna liked this class for its diversity of student levels. It was a general education course, so there were a few freshmen enrolled—Hazel Levesque, for one, and Callie Islet, a perpetually single flirt—but really any students who wanted their humanities requirement satisfied with minimal effort. Exhibit A: crouched behind the tech cart was Leo Valdez, grinning (did he exist in any other state?) and looking distinctly devious. She squinted in his direction from her place at Jason's side, unsure if it was worth talking to Valdez in order to put an end to his shenanigans.

Callie then sidled up to their group, and as no one was rude enough to shoo her off, she stared wonderingly up at Percy. "Hi, Percy," she said in a breathless tone. "How are you?"

He looked at her a little strangely. She was pretty, with caramel-colored hair and a free-flowing white dress that seemed impractical to Reyna, but he wasn't all that interested. "Um, good, you?"

"I'm good," she smiled. "Want to come sit by me?" She gestured to her seat by the window.

Annabeth was watching this exchange with a carefully blank expression, but Reyna could practically hear the amusement and jealousy warring inside her.  _MRS degree,_  the blonde mouthed over Callie's head, and Reyna pressed her lips together against a smile. The freshman had homeschooled through elementary and high school, and the solitude had made her a little too eager to snag a guy.

"Um, sorry, I'm kind of committed to sitting by Annabeth," Percy said, tugging on his girlfriend's shirt. She laughed a little and leaned into him.

Callie cast a brief, dark look at the blonde, but following her regular pattern, she promptly moved her gaze to Jason. "What about you?" she asked hopefully.

But for once, Jason was not paying attention. And then, throwing regularity to the wind: "Piper's not here," he mumbled, craning his neck to see the students across the room.

Reyna almost jumped. "Who?" He had never outright ignored Callie before, and he had  _certainly_  never mentioned a girl. They were best friends, roommates, fellow student leaders, attached at the hip, and he hadn't bothered to mention he was  _interested_  in someone?

—but Mr. D walked in then, sporting a plastic bag of groceries and what looked like a hangover. Leo jumped up from behind the tech cart and threw himself into his third-row seat, widening his eyes and cupping his chin in his hands in his best Innocent impression.

Reyna pursed her lips and slid into her front-row seat between Jason and Annabeth. Callie left them and dropped into the empty seat to Leo's left, smiling brightly and touching him on the arm as she chatted him up. He said something about her being "as pretty and fun as Caribbean music," a pun on her full first name, Calypso, and she blushed coyly.

Ugh. Idiots. Reyna took out her notebook and tried to block out the giggling. But her question hadn't been answered: who the hell was Piper?

* * *

That night, Piper McLean leaned over the counter of Nectar and Ambrosia, the student-run coffee shop, and tugged her sleeves down over her hands so that she could only see the ends of her fingers. The front of her apron stuck to the imitation-wood thanks to multiple spills and rascally syrups, so she didn't care about the little bit more the counter added. The fridge whirred softly, but there was no one in line—no one even in the area as a whole—so she and Leo could be, and were, plenty loud.

"And then right when he was going to start talking about Olympus, the speaker system went  _waaaaah_  and said 'the cow says moo!' He spent fifteen minutes staring at the tech cart!" Leo exploded in laughter, his curls vibrating as his whole body shook. Piper curled over the counter with her head down, and her uncontrollable laughter turned into a snort.

When she had air in her lungs again, she chortled, "You should have had it play 'What does the fox say'—then they would have had it in their heads all day!"

A string of Spanish words flew out of his mouth. "You're right," he huffed. " _Mierda_. An opportunity wasted."

"Next time, bro." She patted him on the arm. "Want to hear about the fire alarm I set off in the dorm?"

He brightened: "Every single detail!" he pleaded, twisting his hands together and squishing his shoulders up by his ears—a lovesick 12-year-old girl waiting to hear about a friend's crush. "Oh hem  _gee!_ "

She snorted again, shifting her weight to her other hip to get comfortable, but before she could say anything, someone coughed softly from the direction of the stairs. She glanced over, her little braids smacking her cheeks and neck with all the ferocity of bunnies, and she saw the hot blond VP standing alone in line, trying for a casual slump and not quite managing it.

Fresh meat. She smacked the counter between her and Leo, gave her best friend a meaningful look, and said, "One sec" before, louder, "Hey, sorry, I can get you now."

Vice President Tall, Buff, and Handsome stepped up to the counter. Piper knew his name full well, but it was more fun to pretend she didn't: "Grace, right?" she asked, cocking her hip out and suppressing a grin as she watched him almost drop his wallet.

Funny—as a rule, she never put too much effort into her appearance. Today, for example, was just a couple of layers of T-shirts and a pair of ripped jeans. There were more important things to spend her time on, like figuring out how to pickpocket the fanciest pants on campus. But Jason was looking at her like he'd never seen a girl before.

"Yeah," he said, his face reddening a bit. It was kind of cute, to be honest; almost enough to crack her flirty front and turn her into a stammering idiot too. But she just focused on his open wallet, and she was good. "Jason—Jason Grace."

He paused, waiting like he wanted her to say something in return, but she pulled out a cardboard cup instead. "What can I get you?" she prompted him.

"Uh—" He blinked, like he'd forgotten he came here for coffee. "Right, sorry. I need a mocha, extra chocolate, extra whipped cream, and then a triple shot of espresso."

Two orders. She pulled out a second cup and scrawled an order on each one. "These both for you?" she asked.

"No, one's for Reyna."

Her lips parted in a knowing  _ah_. "Must be a long night ahead for the two of you," she teased.

"It will be," he agreed before her double-entendre tone caught up with him. He reddened even more as he stammered, "Not that we're—I mean, tests. We have research papers and a couple of tests to study for—I mean, we do live together, but it's not—We aren't—" He trailed off in embarrassment.

"Hey, it's none of my business what student gov does on their nights off," Piper smirked, holding up her hands.

Leo snickered, and Jason looked over, bewildered.

Piper swallowed a laugh, shook her head. "So which one's Reyna's?"

It took him a second to recover his voice. "The extra-chocolate one."

That surprised her, given the lady president's normal image of Regal and Grown-Up, but she was the first to admit appearances weren't everything. For example, most people didn't peg her as a smooth-talker and a thief, which was why she was so good at it. So she said nothing as she wrote the right name on each cup.

"It'll just be a second," she said with a waving-off gesture to give him leave to talk to Leo or something while she threw the coffees together, but he lingered by the cash register.

"How long have you been working here?" he asked over the whir of the espresso machine. "I mean, I stop here pretty much every day, but I've only ever seen Drew or Malcolm working the late shift."

She glanced his way and found him looking at her intently. "Yeah, I'm new," she allowed. "Put the newbie on the worst time slot, right? But a job's a job. Gotta make money somehow."

Leo cackled. She glared.  _Not the time,_  she projected at him. She had zero desire for a lecture on the morality of theft, and if Leo thought her skills were funny, she'd take back the Camaro she'd picked up for him last year.

Piper slapped lids on both coffee cups and slid the drinks toward Jason. He gave her exact change, and she gave him his receipt. "Have a good night," she smiled, but as he began to say  _thanks_  she winked at him, the most flirty and suggestive wink she could manage, so it came out more like  _thaang_.

Jason Grace took his coffee and fled up the stairs.

Leo was practically rolling on the floor, he was laughing so hard. "You did the Thing," he gasped.

She ran her fingers through her choppy hair and made a face. "I have no idea what you're talking about," she said loftily, but she could feel her face smoldering into what she knew was a bright red. Then, her concentration on obnoxious flirting broken: "He's  _cute!_ " she protested in an embarrassed hiss, making Leo laugh even harder.

" _I'm_  cute.  _He's_ , like, a blond Superman." He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

"Shut up." Against her will, her eyes glanced up the staircase, looking for blond hair and broad shoulders and not finding them. Why would she? He had homework and tests and coffee and Reyna. But she unconsciously began to smooth her right hand over her throat, stroking from under her jaw down to her clavicle. A nervous habit, a comforting gesture left over from the way she used to pet Nunnehi, the last cat her dad gave her. Why did she need comforting? That was stupid.

Her best friend grabbed a fistful of her hair and tugged on it lightly. "Dude, Piper. Earth to Piper. Did you at least pull anything?"

She started, then shook her head. "Nah, didn't get the chance." He gave her a look. She had had plenty of chances—Grace had practically thrown his wallet at her. Twice. But she didn't want to discuss why exactly she had left the VP un-pickpocketed, so she crossed her arms over her sticky-aproned chest, and Leo took the hint.

"Fine. Then tell me about the fire alarm," he said.

So she did, even though she was still blushing, not to mention irritated at her stupid, slight disappointment at the empty staircase. But as she talked, it occurred to her that if Jason made a nightly caffeine stop here, she might volunteer for the late shift more often.


	2. Useless

"Where is he?" Reyna asked Aurum, her golden greyhound as she tapped her pen at lightning speed against her open textbook. Aurum's only response was to try to bite through the neck of his silvery brother, Argentum. The dogs began to tussle, tails wagging, and she only sighed and stared at the door. It was long past time for their nightly Homework With Coffee. Where was Jason?

But the door swung open then, and Jason shouldered his way into their apartment, shivering in his thin T-shirt but holding two cups of coffee. "Sorry it took so long," he said, but he sounded dazed and—Reyna thought—not all that sorry.

He held out her cup, and she took it. "What was the holdup?" she asked, inspecting the words written by the lid. Maybe if someone new was working . . . Yeah, she didn't recognize the handwriting that had scrawled her name and order in Sharpie.

"I got distracted," he mumbled. She waited for him to elaborate—coffee was a ritual of theirs, after all. But he offered nothing more (he may have actually clenched his jaw), and she had to hide the twist in her stomach, the physical pain at knowing he wasn't being honest with her.

Quiet, maybe from guilt, Jason slipped into the chair across from her at the little kitchen table. Aurum and Argentum had stopped playing and were now staring him down, a distinctly unfriendly look in their eyes.

He looked from them to Reyna. "Hey," he muttered. "Pass me the bag of treats or call your dogs off. They look hungry."

Reyna leaned down to look her dogs in the eye. Hmm. Hmm, hmm. She did love her dogs and their loyalty to her, not to mention their impeccable ability to pick out liars. She scratched them behind the ears and straightened. "Who's Piper?" she asked casually, and Jason almost choked on his coffee.

Swiping his hand over his chin: "Piper?"

"Yeah. The girl you said wasn't in class today. I don't think I know her. Who is she?" Reyna folded her hands on top of her textbook and treated him to her most indomitable  _you're not getting out of this one_  stare.

He leaned back in his chair and ran his fingers through his hair, his face turning a little pink. "Her name's Piper McLean. She's . . ." He coughed. "I mean, I don't really know her—I see her around a lot, mostly. Y'know, she's in World Mythology, and she's friends with Leo Valdez."

That was not exactly a commendation. She rotated her jaw. "Would I recognize her if I saw her?"

He nodded emphatically. Surely this girl wasn't  _that_  memorable? "She has the choppy hair, with feathers and little braids and stuff, and she wears sweaters and scarves all the time. She's unbelievably gor—" But he clamped his mouth shut.

 _Unbelievably gorgeous._  Ignoring the kick to the stomach that his cut-short compliment gave her, Reyna ran through her visual memory of the students in Mr. D's class. She did think she remembered a Cherokee girl with choppy hair hanging around Valdez—she had seemed decent enough, certainly pretty, but a little loud with her companion.

"You're sure you don't know her?" Jason asked, like he couldn't believe she had overlooked Piper.

Reyna smoothed the slight crinkles in her textbook pages. "I think I  _have_  seen her before, sure."

"What do you think of her?" he pressed.

Her brow creasing, she only shrugged. "I've never talked to her," she said evasively, to avoid saying that she had not planned on doing so, that she hadn't realized it was necessary, and how had this girl come to his attention, anyway?

Jason fell back into silence as he flipped open his copy of the mythology textbook.

This was so wrong, this wall between them. She took a sip of her mocha, which she had a sneaking suspicion Piper had made, and she wanted it to taste awful, but it was as good as usual. With a quiet sigh, she tapped her fingers against the seat of her chair, prompting Aurum and Argentum to back off Jason and his Piper coffee and instead come nose their heads into her hand. She rubbed their short fur fiercely as she reviewed the names of the city-states and their patron deities, but her mind wasn't really on the homework.

It was only Monday. She would watch for Piper around campus this week, she decided. She would even talk to her if she got the chance. And then she could provide Jason with an informed opinion, and maybe present the option of the two of them, an option that had been in her head for so many years.

* * *

With Tuesday early-afternoon sunlight streaming through the student center skylights, Leo tried for the casual Leaning Against The Wall pose outside of the dining hall. Callie was scheduled to come any minute. They'd made plans in class yesterday to have lunch and then hit up the car shop he worked at. He was practically bouncing, he was so excited. She'd sounded so interested, and interesting. And pretty.

Except that so far, there was no sign of her and her interested, interesting prettiness.

Ten minutes later:  _Maybe her car broke down_ , he thought hopefully, before he remembered that she lived in a dorm that was a three-minute walk from the cafeteria.

Fifteen minutes later:  _Maybe she texted me and I missed it_ , he thought hopefully, before he checked his phone for the thirty-fourth time and found, again, no messages.

Twenty minutes later:  _Maybe I had the day wrong_ , he thought.

Half an hour later, Leo was still waiting outside the dining hall.

He glanced at his tricked-out watch. 1:37. Since he no longer had plans, he had to get to a Spanish club meeting at 2:00. Straining his neck for one last look around the student center, he regretfully turned and went in to eat alone. His first instinct was to look around for anyone he knew who might be eating now, and though he didn't see anyone at first, his gaze landed on Frank and Hazel, sitting together at a window table. Two freshmen were much better than no one. He headed for them, throwing a little more bounce into his step than he actually felt.

"What's up, guys?" he called, cheerful and cheeky as he interrupted a Stare Into Each Other's Eyes And Blush session. They glanced up at him; he noticed that Frank looked unhappy to see him. He shrugged this off as he winked at Hazel. "Looking good today."

"Thank you, Leo," she said, blushing even through her dark complexion. Hazel was an old friend—she actually met him through his  _bisabuelo_ , his great-grandfather, which was weird—but if he flirted with her enough he thought she might relent and go out with him.

Of course, her boyfriend wasn't super hot on that idea. "Didn't you have a date or something today?" Frank asked stiffly.

Leo made a face and shrugged, not really answering the question. "You guys mind if I camp out at your table?" he asked instead. "Just for a little bit, I gotta eat and run."

Frank and Hazel looked back at each other, and they must have developed some sort of weird couple telepathy (did all couples get that? 'cause he was definitely interested), because they didn't actually say anything before Hazel said, "Sure, that'd be fine." The look she gave Frank suggested that their magic telepathy had involved some arguing over this point.

Well, Leo had learned not to look a gift Camaro in the engine. "Great, thanks!" He dumped his jacket onto the chair beside Hazel's and darted off to get some food. Thankfully, since it was just about time to leave for 2:00 classes, there weren't many lines. It took him maybe five minutes to pick up a couple of slices of pepperoni pizza, a huge sweet potato with butter, and a glass of Coke.

On his way back to the table, he saw Callie eating lunch—or snuggling, really, there didn't seem to be any actual food involved—in a corner booth with some guy on the football team. His stomach dropped, but she hadn't seen him and he didn't have time to go over and say anything, so he continued to weave his way back to the freshmen.  _Maintain the bounce_ , he told himself, but a voice in his head sneered,  _Even the desperate, perpetually single girl can't stand you for longer than a day_ , and he glared at the butter melting into the sweet potato.

His watch read 1:44 as he set his plate and cup down beside Hazel. Spanish club was two buildings over. Leo did some quick mental math and realized he needed at least seven minutes to get there on time, leaving him nine minutes to eat and get out of the cafeteria. He began to shovel sweet potato into his mouth.

"So I was telling Frank," Hazel offered, since she and her man were both done eating already, "I was thinking about going to one of the swing dancing classes, to see what it's like. It's free, and I think it'd be fun. Would you want to come?"

Frank's jaw clenched. This, Leo thought, was reason enough to want to go.

"Will there be girls there?" he asked through a mouthful of mush.

Hazel nodded. "My friend Gwen goes, and she says there's always more girls than guys, so it might be nice to have an extra guy."

"Huh," he said, swallowing the mush and starting in on the pizza. "Might. When's it?"

"Tonight at eight?"

He looked at his watch without thinking (1:49), and then he remembered that he didn't have his schedule written on it. "I don't think I have anything to do—"

"Homework?" Frank suggested.

"—At least not anything  _important_ ," Leo corrected himself, "so I'll check and see if Piper thinks she'll want someone to talk to at work. But it should be fine." Half of the second slice of pizza disappeared into his mouth.

"Cool!" Hazel smiled.

Frank looked like he thought it was anything but.

"Cool," Leo grinned through a mouthful of the last half-slice. Washing it down with the last of the Coke, he threw on his jacket and picked up his dirty dishes. "See you guys later!" He speed-walked to the conveyor belt, dumped his dishes, and hightailed it out the door to get to Spanish club.

Only freshmen ran to get anywhere—and Leo himself only ran if someone was chasing him—so he just walked quickly as he pulled out his phone. It, like his perfect car, had been a gift from Piper, mostly because she felt he was lacking ways to talk to her. For example, she had expressly said he needed to text her when stuff happened, so that was what he would do.  _You work again tonight?_  he texted her.

He knew she was still in the middle of her two-hour class, but she immediately texted back,  _Yeah, 8 to close._

 _Okay if alone?_  He almost ran into Percy, but the skater wove around him at the last minute.

She answered with another question, one that was very clearly not a yes:  _You can't come?_  Then, before he could answer, he got a third.  _What if Jason comes?_

His mind filled with images of himself swing dancing with blushing girls with dresses and snake hips. But he could nearly hear the anxiety in her voice, and the thought of letting her down twisted in his stomach.  _I can come if you want me to_ , he texted back.

Piper, who refused to accept tutoring, who stole from multiple brands so she wouldn't have to ask a sales rep for help, texted back,  _Please come._

Leo sighed, the breath of air whipping away in the wind. The blushing girls would have to wait. He texted Hazel,  _Sorry, Piper wants company. Maybe next time?_

Hazel was really bad at figuring out technology, so he didn't expect to hear back from her anytime soon. He shot off a brief encouraging text to Piper and then shoved his phone back in his pocket, moments before he came into the blessed heat of the linguistics building. Beautiful. He hated the cold, even when it was just the early fall chill. He bounced down a flight of stairs to get to the equally well-heated lounge, where the members of the campus Spanish club were sprawled over couches and armchairs, with a Spanish movie playing on someone's MacBook and bilingual conversations burbling in the background.

One member was perched on an armchair set slightly away from the rest of the group, her legs crossed primly as she  _tick tack_ ed at her laptop, her lips barely moving as she whispered to herself. Every strand of dark hair twisted sleekly into her perfect braid; her royal purple button-down blouse creased in exactly the right places to look neat and flattering but intensely intimidating.

Leo  _loved_  intimidating. The danger was half the reason he ever bothered to engage the least eligible girl on campus.

"Yo, Reyna," he grinned, hopping onto the armrest she wasn't using.  _"¿Como está nuestra presidente ilustre hoy?_ " (How is our illustrious president today?)

Her tapping became louder and angrier, but she actually spoke. "Get off the armrest. You'll break it."

Even if it was in distinctly chilly English, it was a better response than he usually got. " _Bien_." (Fine.) He leaned over so that his butt fell off the armrest and onto the seat, squishing up against her side. She shifted away from him. He fell the rest of the way.

" _¿Hace calor aquí, o eres tú?_ " Leo tried again (Is it hot in here, or is it you?), sending her a winning grin, but she didn't even look over at him. He peered over her shoulder to see what she was working on—and she snapped the lid shut.

"Is Piper with you?" she asked.

Leo shook his curls. "She's more into French—language of love and all that." He considered adding something about Spanish being romantic too, but he was quickly losing Reyna's attention (and patience quota), so he began to babble, "Well, she knows a little Spanish from me, but not that much. Plus she has an environmentalism class this hour. I didn't know you knew Piper. She never said anything, which is kind of weird, I would have thought she would have, it's kind of a—" Then he remembered that Reyna was dating Jason (or was with him in some capacity), so she probably wouldn't take too kindly to Piper's blush-and-turn-incoherent thing for Jason. "— _not_  that it's a big thing, I just didn't know you knew her, that's cool, you probably know everyone—"

"I wasn't asking your opinion." Reyna cut him off with a chilly look. Then, apparently deciding he had no more information to offer her, she opened her laptop and went back to her homework.

"Who comes to Spanish club to do homework?" he asked, but she didn't respond, and when three of his best pickup lines failed to get a rise out of her, he finally slid off her chair to go try his hand at the girls giggling over a telenovela.

When Leo glanced back, he saw Reyna speaking easy Spanish with a girl sitting across from her. He plastered a grin on his face to mask the stupid small wound. What else was new?

* * *

Even with the totally useless interaction with Valdez, Reyna didn't see Piper all day, but that was typical for a Tuesday.  _Whether or not I talk to her is irrelevant,_  she told herself;  _I should just talk to Jason._  So she spent Tuesday evening working up her nerve to broach the subject.

They were setting their books on the kitchen table when, as she began to say, "I wanted to ask you something," he jumped towards the door with a bright "I'm gonna go get the coffee, okay?"

She scrutinized his high brows, his grip on the door as he hung halfway out in the hallway. "Want me to go instead tonight?" she offered. "Or come with you?"

He waved her off. "Nah, that's fine. Thanks anyway. Stay here, I'll be right back, bye!"

And then he was gone.

Reyna slowly lowered herself into her chair and, with a sigh, rapped her knuckles in slow 1—2—3 rhythm against her forehead. Aurum pressed himself against her legs, and Argentum whined from behind her. She was well aware that her dogs wouldn't care if Jason fell off the face of the earth, but they knew she was upset about his being gone, and she appreciated their support.

"He'll be right back," she said, as much to herself as to them.

Jason didn't return for two hours.


	3. Dazed

Piper had had a significant attitude adjustment when she went in to work at 8pm Tuesday night. After Monday night's encounter, she held out hope that she might see Jason again tonight.

She was not disappointed.

"Oh, hey, you're here again," the blond guy called from halfway down the stairs, putting on a casual tone she could see straight through, given how quickly he was tripping down to her floor. There were more people around tonight, most of them in line, but rather than fussing he only took his place at the end of the line, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet and exchanging hellos with just about everyone. Leo bounced over to talk to him, since Piper was busy.

Piper was working alone again—the late shift would have been a really lonely one if not for Leo's company—so she was practically breaking a sweat trying to keep the students happy. It was  _take an order, take a name, take the money, reassure the people still waiting, throw together the drink, stick it on the counter, call the name as you hustle back to the next customer_. But toes were tapping, not because of the overplayed music coming from the overhead speakers, and she even forgot to palm things, she was in such a rush. What was happening to her?

Granted, she wasn't in such a rush that she forgot to peek around customers' heads every so often to get a look at Jason. God, he was gorgeous. And oddly enough, even though the line was long and barely crawled along, his expression never once creased into irritation.

Slowly, painfully (she stubbed her toe on the fridge at least once, making her hiss French profanities), she worked her way through the line. She didn't recognize any of the people, though she would learn the names of some of the ruder ones after she picked up their things. Small things, you know . . . class rings, car keys, IDs. Trinkets, really.

Then Piper called, "A smoothie for Clarisse," and she turned and it was Jason stepping up to the counter. He seemed to be the last in line, and she couldn't suppress a sigh of relief.

"That glad I could come?" Jason teased before his face turned red. From behind him, Leo looked between them and waggled his eyebrows.

Piper laughed and leaned forward on her elbows, reaching up to twirl one thin braid around her index finger. "I'm sure, Grace," she rolled her eyes, shooting him a crooked smile when he faltered. "Sorry about the wait."

"No, no, it was totally fine," he reassured her, extending one hand and then jerking it back before he actually touched her. She stared at his open palm briefly before returning her gaze to his big blue eyes. "You looked like you were going crazy—I mean, in a good way. Has it been like this all night?"

She shrugged. "I got here an hour ago, and it only became a rush half an hour ago. I think it's the universe conspiring against you," she stage-whispered confidentially.

"Against me?"

"Well, sure, I mean, you're just here for my scintillating conversation, right?" she teased him, pretending to flip her hair. Jason turned bright red, and though he opened his mouth, he didn't deny it. In fact, he didn't say much of anything.

 _Oh._  Heat rose in her face, and she could practically feel her wit leaving her.

Thankfully Leo saw the impending train wreck and stepped in. " _Your_  conversation?" he pretended to challenge her, mocking affront. "Beauty Queen, I think you're confused. Sparky here is clearly returning for a second dose of my impeccable punning abilities."

Jason glanced down at his shirt, which bore the lightning-bolt symbol of the Flash—presumably the source of Leo's new nickname. He shrugged.

"So which one is it, Mr. Vice President Guy?" Leo demanded, widening his dark eyes.

He thought about it and then answered, "Yes," a smile stretching the scar on his upper lip.

 _He has a snarky side._  Piper turned her head to laugh into her shoulder. When she looked back, he was beaming. Score. She should have taken his order, but . . .

"Shouldn't you have someone else working with you?" Jason asked, his brow creasing in what looked like concern. "I mean, since you're new. Are you allowed to work on your own?"

"Wow, thanks for having so much faith in me!" she teased him, pushing him lightly on the arm. She kept her hands far away from his pockets and his wallet, just in case. "Ask your long-night Reyna; my coffee is flawless, just like me. Or Leo."

Leo struck a pose.

Jason stammered, "No, I didn't—I meant, training, and rushes—"

Leo cackled. Piper threw a mini Sharpie at him.

"No, you're right," she said to Jason. "I actually worked at a coffee shop—well, I made coffee before I started here." By  _made coffee_ , she meant  _palmed stuff from the local coffee shop until she had a full Starbucks station in the kitchen_. Leo still hadn't convinced her to tell him how she managed to nab the name-brand espresso machine. "They just had me make a few things and then declared me good to go."

"They must have been desperate," Leo stage-whispered to Jason. Piper smacked him and palmed his ID at the same time; she would give it back after he apologized. Or stopped embarrassing her. Or really, first, noticed it was missing.

Jason shook his head. "But really, they just let you work alone? Even on your first night?"

Piper shrugged. "Last night was supposed to be dead, which it was. And today I was supposed to be working with Rachel Elizabeth Dare, but she called in sick."

"Sick of  _you_ , maybe," Leo suggested.

Jason bumped him on the shoulder in reprimand. "You look like you're handling it pretty well, at least," the blond offered her.

She cocked her head and stuck her fists on her hips. "I thought I looked like I was going crazy?"

Leo draped one arm over Jason's shoulders. "Pro tip," he said with a sympathetic grin, "quit when you're behind."

Jason made a strangled noise and shot her a bewildered look, eyes wide, jaw slightly dropped. She smirked, stiffening her shoulders against the laughter she was suppressing.

"I didn't—" he started helplessly. "You're great."

She snorted.

"No, really," he insisted, even though he was turning redder by the syllable, and when she met his gaze, she felt her own face heat up.  _Damn it! Calm down!_  she told herself. But she was still staring at the scar, so she distracted herself by picking his wallet out of his left-hand sweater pocket, rifling through it blindly, and sticking it back in his right-hand pocket. There, good. He was just another mark.

"Now you're just looking for free coffee," she accused him playfully. "Sorry, bro, you can compliment me all you want and you'll still have to pay like everyone else." He opened his mouth to protest but she continued, "Now, what can I get for you and your 'lady friend'?" She mimicked Leo's best eyebrow waggle. As far as anyone at Apollo U knew, Jason and Reyna were A Thing, and she would abide by that gossip until proven otherwise.

He either didn't pick up on her innuendo or elected to ignore it. "Same as yesterday," he said. "A mocha for Reyna, extra chocolate, extra whipped cream, and a triple shot for me."

She remembered what he had gotten. Not that she would ever admit it. That would be creepy. "Y'all are boring," Piper said as she scribbled the names and orders on the cups.

"What would you recommend, then?" Jason countered, in a tone that couldn't possibly have been meant as flirty as it sounded.  _Wallet, watch, iPhone_ , she repeated to herself, all the things of his that  _were_  available to her.

"I mix things up," she shrugged. "Last night I made myself a white mocha with caramel. Maybe tonight I'll have a dirty hazelnut chai. I dunno—I live loose. Gotta be flexible." She demonstrated this life philosophy with a sashay of her hips, a crude and overdone imitation of the salsa dancing she'd caught Leo practicing alone more than once.

She knew she was bad at snake hips, but she caught Jason staring at her waist for a beat too long, and when he looked back up, his Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. She winked at him.

"We only sell coffee here, bro."

"Oh, dear God," someone groaned from the base of the stairs, and she looked over to see a sickly pale guy looking over at them in clear disdain. She wasn't sure how much of their conversation he was reacting to, but she leaned her chin on one hand and, with a friendly smile, flipped him the bird.

"Octavian," Jason said, disapproving and barely civil. With a nod in tense acknowledgement, the other guy lifted his chin and turned to continue on his way.

"You know him?" Piper asked him in an undertone, her nose wrinkling.

Jason turned back toward her, concern creasing his brow. "A bit. He's the grandson of the head of the music department, and he works for a guy who works for my dad. I wouldn't say we're friends."

"Would  _anyone_  say they were friends with him?" Leo countered out loud, with a nasty look in the direction Octavian had gone.

Jason shook his head. "I'm sure he's fine. I just don't . . . know him very well."

"Don't want to, either," Piper said, raising her eyebrows. "Is he usually that much of an ass?"

Jason rotated his jaw and pressed his lips together. "Like I said, I don't know him very well. All I can say is he took issue with all the Central transfers coming in this year."

"What about us transfers?"

"AU was really lenient about it. Look, I'm not really supposed to talk about it," he confessed.

How did he even know in the first place? Was that a student gov thing? But Piper held up her hands and leaned back. "Fine, okay. We'll talk about something other than the random higher-up jerkwad. How about the Freshman Three?"

Leo's whole face brightened with knowing what she meant, but Jason looked at her in confusion. "The Freshman Three?"

"You know, the three questions all the freshmen ask each other. That's how Leo and I always referred to it, anyway." She glanced at him, for a moment terrified that she had misspoken or somehow made this up, but he nodded back at her.

Jason settled forward, leaning both his elbows on the counter. "Okay, okay. What are your Freshman Three?"

She wasn't sure if he actually hadn't heard these before or if he was just humoring her, but either way, she wasn't going to give up his attention. She held up three fingers and touched the first—"Name"—the second—"major"—the third—"hometown," and then she added, "If you get really personal, you ask how many siblings they have. But you have to get through the Three before you can even think about reaching Sibling Question Level."

The blond laughed, nodded, looked her in the eye. "Nailed it. Okay. You wanna go first?"

He meant did she want to answer them first, but in the interest of being ornery: "Sure. What's your name?"

His eyebrows jumped a bit, but he answered, "Jason Grace."

"Phew. Hasn't changed in the last 24 hours. What's your major?"

"Liberal arts," he said, straightening so he could spread his arms as wide as they would go. "I just think everything is so great, I couldn't pick just one thing to study."

She laughed behind her hand. "Liberal arts . . . At Central we called that the burger-flipping major. Hope you're okay with that."

"You have a lot of alternate names for things," he commented.

"We're extremely perceptive, you know."

"Hope you're okay with being wrong sometimes."

Oh, snap. Sass. Her smirking lips parted as she circled her index finger toward him. "Are you generally this untrusting, or am I just lucky tonight?"

"You wish you were lucky tonight," Leo muttered, and Piper leaned over to punch him in the arm, swiping her hair out of her eyes. When she looked back up, Jason was studying the pattern on the fake-marble counter.

"Hometown," she said, and he looked back up at her.

"Apollo," he shrugged.

Here, then. "You're a townie?"

"Yeah." His tone sounded strained, like he wanted to move on, but something had just clicked in her head. He knew Octavian through his dad, he was from around here, and his last name was Grace—

"Wait, are you the president's kid?" she blurted. President Jove Grace, who she'd never so much as seen.

Jason winced.

"Dude! You got the power!" Leo said in awe, looking Jason over as if for the first time. "Have you ever—?"

"Can we not?" Jason asked quickly. "Piper, your turn. What's—?"

"Did I tell you my name?" she asked, scrutinizing him. She was pretty sure she'd kept that tidbit safe. So he had either asked someone, or looked her up, or just paid attention.

He immediately realized his mistake. "Crap. Um, I didn't—It's—"

Leo began to laugh so hard his curls shook, and Piper ducked her head into her shoulder as she laughed too. Jason looked between them and, tentatively, cracked an embarrassed smile.

* * *

"'We only sell coffee here'?" Piper hissed to Leo an hour and a half later, after Jason remembered to order his coffee and left. "What am I, a hooker? I sounded like an idiot!" She buried her hands in her hair and pulled, groaning  _aughhhhhhh_.

"I thought it was hilarious," Leo admitted, his voice high and tight with laughter, and she smacked him.

"Sure,  _you_  think so, you weren't the one saying it!" she snapped, smiling in spite of herself. "Ugh."

"On the positive side," he offered, "he was totally checkin' out da Beauty Queen booty."

Piper froze. "He was not."

"He was. 'Do she got da booty? She doooo—'"

"Shut up! No way. Do you think? I was just teasing him—"

Leo gave her a  _don't even_  look.

She mussed her hair so that tufts and braids stuck out at odd angles. "I just don't want to assume, or get my hopes up, or anything. And he has  _Reyna_." Leo liked to make fun of her looks, and she was well aware she didn't put any effort into improving them, and Jason was, well, Jason. Possibly the most flawless human being on the face of the planet. Just because she wanted to think he came for her company didn't mean he actually did.

As much as she wanted to keep debating this, a different thought occurred to her. "Hey, didn't you have a date today? With Callie, yeah?"

Leo smiled, his smile freezing in pace. "Oh, y'know. I showed up, I waited for her, she was already swapping spit with some other guy. Same old."

Piper groaned, her eyebrows drawing together as she reached out and ran her fingers through his hair. "I'm sorry, bro."

He shrugged again. "I'm used to it," he said, and then, deftly returning the topic to her: "That's why I have to get my romance vicariously, aka through you. Which is why  _you_  need to make a move on Sparky."

"I—?! Hi, be with you in a sec," she said suddenly to the freshman guy who'd slunk up behind Leo and was looking at her pointedly. "Shut up, I'll be right back," she muttered to Leo before sliding over to the cash register and motioning for the other guy to come forward.

"Hey, how's it going?" he asked, a nervous grin revealing braces.

"Good, you?"

"Good." His hands shook as he pulled out his wallet, and in the two seconds he looked down, Piper palmed the iPod sticking out of his side pocket. Then he looked up, and she jerked her hand back, masking the motion as her straightening the stack of cardboard sleeves. The iPod slipped back into place. Screw it, she didn't need it anyway. "Can I get a, um, pretty— _peppermint_ —peppermint mocha? Extra large?"

Leo coughed something that sounded like  _compensating_.

"Sure," Piper said, clenching her jaw so that her expression didn't change. She glanced over her shoulder at the menu and added, "It'll be four-fifty."

He passed her a five-dollar bill, and once she'd given him his two quarters back, she turned to make the drink. The freshman coughed and awkwardly sidled along the counter, trying to stay in her line of vision. She glanced up from pouring the milk when he tried, "So, coffee's pretty good."

That was it? She resisted the urge to roll her eyes and sigh. "Yep," she said crisply, and she went back to her work. Leo began to cough uncontrollably.

Not soon enough, Piper passed the boy his girly coffee. He turned a mottled purplish pink as he stammered, "Thanks." She nodded, and he backed away.

Leo's fake coughing turned into honest laughter. "Why do you do customer service?" he wondered aloud as she wandered back over to him.

"Okay, that didn't count," she protested, jerking a thumb toward the cash register. "He was awkward and weird."

"I'm awkward and weird," Leo said. "But in a fabulous, irresistible way."

"That makes two of us," Piper agreed sarcastically. "Which is why there is no way in hell I'm going to get anywhere with Jason."

"What if you got him something?"

Scenarios flashed through her mind, from lifting some snack foods from a gas station to talking a mall employee out of a giant flat-screen TV. "Somehow I don't think he would appreciate my methods," she admitted quietly.

"Then change your methods," he suggested. "We're both working grownups. Spend a little cash, it won't kill you."

"I don't like buying things."

"Yeah, so I gather."

No, she  _really_  didn't like buying things. Because saving up money and then blowing it on something she'd forget about in two weeks was wasteful, which Leo knew. And because spending hard-earned money felt a lot like what she saw her dad's people doing to promote him, which Leo sort of knew. But mostly because getting caught stealing (which, granted, happened less often now that she was good at it) was the only sure way of getting her dad to return her calls, which, if Leo knew, he didn't acknowledge.

For once, the two of them fell into silence.

* * *

Wednesday afternoon, Piper walked into World Mythology at Leo's side, in stitches and practically falling over each other laughing as she recounted exactly how she had convinced her roommate, Annabeth's, boyfriend Percy to try a skateboarding trick that had landed him on his butt in front of Annabeth.

"He spent the next fifteen minutes just rubbing his a—" At that moment, Piper locked eyes with Jason, who was watching her from his seat in the front row. Her laughter caught in her throat.

"Hey, Piper," Jason said with a wave and a smile.

In a daze, Piper didn't even realize she was smiling until she felt her hand waving in return and her lips forming the words "Hey, Jason." Oh, god. She was so screwed.

Leo bounced forward, refusing to be ignored. "Hey, Jason. Hey, Reyna," he added, beaming at the girl on Jason's right, and Piper realized for the first time that the president was there, eyes almost as dark as Leo's as she looked the two troublemakers over, conspicuously ignoring Leo's greeting.

Evidently used to this, Leo hooked his arm in Piper's and dragged her over to their seats in the third row back. They had no sooner pulled out their seats than Dylan, one of the more annoying football jocks, dragged his chair over and sat on it backwards. She looked for Leo's help, but he had jumped over the fourth-row table to talk to some sophomore girls. Which meant she was on her own with a boy that referred to himself as "the D." Someone shoot her now.

"You join a sorority yet?" he asked her, stretching so that his massive biceps bulged.

Giving him an unimpressed look, she pulled her knees to her chest and stretched her legs over the tabletop. "No," she said for the billionth time. "Like I've told you, I was a Greek at Central, but I don't live on campus here, and frankly I have better things to do with my time."

"Like what? Visit the local rez?" said some snotty girl from across the way.

Piper balled her fists.  _Starting fights during class is frowned upon_ , she told herself in a forced calm tone.

Dylan, who had smirked at the remark, now wanted to get back to the original subject. "I'm asking because I know there's an empty spot in our sister org, and we're gonna have a party tomorrow night, so if you want to come—"

"You know, I am so good," she cut him off. "Thanks anyway, Dill."

"It's 'the D.'"

"I think I'd rather have the pickle," she said before she pulled out her favorite green Sharpie and began to doodle obscenities on the table.

Dylan lingered just long enough that she turned to give him a look, but she caught the eye of Jason behind him. Jason was watching them with a slightly drawn expression, and Piper threw him an eye-rolling  _can you believe this guy_  look before she shoved Dylan's chair so hard he fell over.  _Whoops_ , she thought with zero regret.

Of course, that was right when Mr. D walked in. "Looks like third row is volunteering for a heart-to-heart with campus police. Congratulations."

Piper looked over to see Leo flick his lighter off. "What else is new?" he shrugged, tossing her a sideways grin.

The adjunct professor made a wide sweeping motion toward the classroom door. Piper drew her legs off the table, and she and Leo took their good sweet time sauntering out the door. It flashed through her mind to trail her fingers along Jason's notebook as she passed, but Reyna was right there, and she lost her nerve.

* * *

That night at work, Piper's last shift for the week, Leo had to leave early (for some girl or another), and he hadn't been gone ten minutes when Dylan leaned up against the counter. Piper gave him a tired look and sighed, "What can I get you?"

His crooked grin boded ill for her. "Coffee's fine, but listen, I really think you should come tomorrow night. It'd be fun, and you—"

"I told you, thanks but no thanks," she stressed, backing away and holding up her hands. "I have stuff to do—"

"Like what? Work? This place will be closed," he challenged her, gesturing sharply to the sign on her right that said exactly that. "And we both know you won't be studying."

"She'll be with me," said someone new, and in a moment of terror Piper dreaded to know who it was—but she looked past Dylan and saw Jason stepping off the staircase, his expression unreadable as he neared Nectar and Ambrosia. Dylan turned, and a little bravado drained from his demeanor.

"You?" Dylan asked, disbelieving.

"Yeah, me." Jason stopped by the cash register, where he crossed his arms—his  _fine_  arms, Piper couldn't help but notice, with biceps just as defined as Dylan's but more humbly hidden. Her stomach twisted in a way that wasn't altogether unpleasant.

Focus. Right. Dylan and Jason. The polar opposite football players having a standoff during her shift.

She jerked out of her stomach-twisting thoughts in time to hear the student VP say calmly, "We're having dinner at my place. So, sorry, but she's busy."

Dylan looked between him and her; she shrugged and gave him a smug smile. He rotated his jaw, muttered something unflattering, and backed away. Once he was out of sight, Jason turned to Piper.

"Your lack of faith in me is heartwarming," she said drily.

"Sorry," he said immediately, and sincerely, as far as she could tell. "I'm sure you were fine, I just get a little bit of a hero complex sometimes."

If it had been anyone else, she would have been royally perturbed, but for some reason she was a little bit pleased that he cared enough to try to help her out.

"And, I mean, of course you don't have to come over," he said, but he hesitated, and then . . . "But, um, you'd be more than welcome if you did want to."

Piper stared at the blond young man standing on the other side of the counter, a thousand emotions exploding in her at once and heat blooming on her face. Oh god oh god oh god. Was this an offer of a date? Was she, a number-one thieving vandal, being invited over for dinner with the student gov vice president (coincidentally also the university president's son)? Where was Leo when she needed him?

Jason was waiting, and the longer she stared in silence, the redder he became. Eventually he looked down at his hands and mumbled, "Forget I even—"

"Sure," she blurted, and his head jerked up. Quickly she clarified, "Sure, I'll come. I mean, you offered, and it's probably better than whatever I would order from takeout, so why not?" She tried to sound flippant, but every muscle tensed in her excitement. How was this even happening? How had she landed a date with the most—?

Wait. Shit. Her stomach dropped.

Maybe this wasn't a date, in the formal romantic sense. He'd invited her  _over_ , not  _out_. He probably had a roommate, maybe more than one. Plus there was the Reyna factor, always the Reyna factor. Maybe he wanted to be friends; friends could have dinner, right?

But she didn't want to admit she'd jumped to conclusions, even such an appealing one, so she just said, "Maybe Leo could come too? He and I usually have dinner together, so I'd hate to leave him in the lurch. Mostly because he can't cook to save his life."

Jason laughed and rolled his shoulders. "Yeah, sure. Bring Leo, he's great."

Piper tried not to fixate on the fact that he liked her best friend. Or, conversely, that he didn't seem upset to have another person along on their not-a-date. "Thanks. That won't be awkward, will it?"

"Nah," he said, but he looked unconvinced until an idea occurred to him. "Hey, what if Reyna joined us? Would that be okay? It'd be two and two that way."

He didn't specify who was pairing up with whom. She shifted her weight, pretending her heart didn't sink even deeper. High heart rate, low hopes. But no way was she dropping this opportunity. "Sounds great," she said, and she smiled at him.

* * *

Reyna still didn't know much about Piper, except that she'd been kicked out of class that day. And she really needed to get on that. Three nights in a row, Monday Tuesday Wednesday, Jason had seemed a little more eager than usual to go out in the dark to get their coffee, and it didn't escape Reyna's notice that his trips got progressively longer. And the third night, he came in red-faced, and it wasn't from the cold.

"I have a date with Piper!" he blurted as soon as he came in the door, a grin exploding over his face.

Reyna froze, one hand extended to take her cup. "What?"

"I didn't say anything because I wasn't sure if she'd take me up on it," he admitted—"and to be honest it just kind of happened, but I asked her out for dinner and she said yes!"

"Hey, congrats." She forced a smile and bumped him with her shoulder, the closest she came to hugging. "You two will have a great time." Without her.

But then Jason started to rub the back of his neck in that way that meant he was hiding something. "Well . . . actually I don't know if it counts as a  _date_  date. She wants to bring Leo."

Her nose wrinkled. "A third wheel. Won't that be awkward?"

" _Welllll,_ " he began.

Oh,  _no._  He didn't.

"I kind of said you would join us," he rushed, pleading at her with big blue eyes. 'It would be sort of like a double date—only not," he backtracked hastily at the expression on her face. "More like, just in case it doesn't work out, it's not just me and Piper sitting there staring at the clock."

Reyna backed up, holding up her hands and shaking her head. "Look, Piper on her own is maybe okay, but Leo? No. I would never be able to get rid of him. Besides, I'm not even big on going out. The three of you would have way more fun at the restaurant without me."

"Oh." Jason's eyebrows jumped. "Did I forget to say?"

Oh, no. She pressed her fingers to her temple. "Say  _what?_ "

He gave her a guilty smile. "We're having dinner here."

She stared at him. " _Here_  here?"

" _Here_  here."

She was struck by the urge to throw a brick at his head. "Why?" she demanded, pivoting to look around the apartment. There were piles of books in the corner, she needed to dust, they hadn't vacuumed since they moved in last month . . .

"I thought it would be nice for her to see where we live," he protested. "And she mentioned she's a vegetarian, so it'd be easier to make that here than to try to find a restaurant that has decent veggie options."

Those were decent reasons, but if the trio came here, she would have to either lock herself in her room or leave the apartment to escape them, neither of which sounded enjoyable. Her only real option was to socialize. She made an angry noise at the back of her throat.

"Please?" Jason pleaded.

Another angry noise, and she glared at his hairline, but then: "Fine," with a grumpy swig of extra-chocolate mocha. "But you owe me."

Jason grinned, a completely thrilled grin, and he burst forward to envelop her in a tight hug. Her face was pressed against his chest as he praised her virtues: "Thank you so much, Reyna! You're the best, you're awesome, you won't regret this, I swear . . ."

She laughed a little, a nervous warm breath against his cotton T-shirt. "Okay, okay," she mumbled, and as she returned the hug some of the regret drained out of her.

They pulled apart; Jason looked more excited than she'd seen him in, well, ever.

"So you had better help me clean this place up," she said, half an order. "When is this dinner, anyway?" She might be able to get everything cleaned in a week or two. And the time would give her a little space to become used to the idea.

"Tomorrow night."

" _Tomor—?!_ " She pitched one of Aurum's squeaky toys at Jason's head.


	4. Plummeting

"If you don't get that vacuum fixed, I swear to God . . ." Reyna's voice trailed off, the threat even stronger left unspoken. Eyes wide, Jason pushed the vacuum cleaner onto the carpet and began to inspect its underside, coughing a little at the malodorous smoke drifting from it.

She'd gotten up at five in the morning to get today's student gov work done,  _with no coffee_  no less, and as soon as they'd finished classes she'd dragged them both back to the apartment to clean. Of course, this was when all the cleaning appliances decided to implode for no reason. If Piper and Leo showed up and found their place a mess, she would never live it down.

Crouching down, she slid a big stack of textbooks into her arms and with a groan stretched back to a standing position, leaning back a little to counterbalance. "Time is it?" she grunted.

She couldn't see him, but he must have looked at a clock somewhere, because he answered, "Five past four."

Not even two hours left, and they still had to make dinner. Shit. She rolled her head in frustration (and felt her braid smack lightly against her spine, a reassuring solid presence), and then she hefted the books into her room, where she balanced them on one knee as she stuck them back in their alphabetical-order places. "Have you decided what we're going to make?" she called.

"What are the options?" he called back, which she could have predicted. It was his response anytime she asked him what he wanted for dinner.

"Vegetarian?"

"Yeah!"

She bit her lower lip as she slid  _The Art of War_  in between Stevenson's  _Treasure Island_  and Tolkien's  _The Hobbit_. "We can make stir fry pretty easily, pasta, burritos, quiche. I can get tofu for stuff that's usually meat-based . . ."

"Uh, stir fry!"

The last book in place, Reyna hurried back into the living room for the next stack. As she passed by Jason wielding a screwdriver, she nudged him with her toe. "Did you just pick that one because I said it first?"

He grinned up at her, perfect in every way. "Is that a bad way to pick a menu?"

The corners of her lips tipped upward. "Just need to decide," she said, heading back to the bookcase. "Now how's the vacuum coming?"

As she knelt to pick up the books, he twirled the screwdriver between his fingers. It would have been an impressive trick if he hadn't flipped it too hard and accidentally thrown it into the carpet. "We'll try it out and see."

"I want to hear the roar of clean carpet," she warned him, and he saluted her. But when she returned five minutes later, books exchanged for a Mr. Clean magic eraser, he was still fiddling. "Where is my roar of clean carpet?"

"It's coming, gimme a second"—but Jason's voice was tight with tension, and a headache began to pinch at the base of Reyna's neck. If she had to deal with a broken vacuum on top of all this . . .

She crouched by the wall and began to scrub at smudges on the paint. Fingerprints, black scuffs from moving furniture, dust, dirt. Her fingernails dug into the sponge, her fingers bent stiff at the knuckles, as she scoured every stain away.  _A home reflects on the people who live there,_  Hylla used to say, and since she was the only member of Reyna's family who'd stuck around long enough to be reflected on—

Jason muttered something that sounded like a profanity and threw the screwdriver on the ground. "If that didn't get it," he said through gritted teeth as he pressed the power switch into the ON position. Reyna turned to watch, ready to run for the fire extinguisher if necessary, but the vacuum sputtered into being, sans flames or foul-smelling smoke this time. He blew his breath out through his teeth.

"Got it," he told her over his shoulder.

She waved for him to move. "So vacuum. Make sure you move  _all_  the furniture and get under—"

"I am 21 years old. I have vacuumed before, Reyna."

"Last time you didn't move the couch."

He sighed. "Fine." As he straightened and began to push the rumbling device over the carpet, Reyna pressed her hand into the small of her back and arched backward, trying to rid herself of the ache that was spreading through her whole body. Ugh.

And it wasn't just the time frame and the complications; she could at least be honest with herself about that fact. It was the whole situation. She paused in her frantic scrubbing to admire the muscles of Jason's back and shoulders, moving with the vacuum, pulling on his T-shirt. _I am so close,_  she sighed to herself,  _yet so far away._

Jason vacuumed through the living room, the hall, and both bedrooms. When the roar of the vacuum faded out, he came back out to unplug it and asked, "Um, hey, did you notice that the pipe to the sink is spraying water all over the bathroom?"

Reyna shouted a word she wouldn't want her professors to hear and bolted over to attempt damage control.

* * *

The apartment doorbell had long been broken, so it was two resounding knocks that made Jason and Reyna jump. "That's them!" he hissed, all but shoving the wall mirror into her arms as he fell over himself trying to get to the door. She hung it in its place, smoothed her shirt down the front and sides, raised her chin, and glided out toward the door as Jason opened it.

Piper, as she feared, looked like a goddess had blessed her wardrobe, even in perfectly casual dress. Her snowboarding jacket somehow framed her curves in an obscenely pretty way, over an equally flattering cami and well-cut jeans tucked into boots. In a moment of insecurity, Reyna wished she had put on something better than her favorite purple button-down and a charcoal-grey pencil skirt.

"Hey, Jason! Hey, Reyna! Looking fine, milady." Leo bounced in, grinning and way too excited for 6:00 on a Thursday night. It looked like he had tried and failed to slick his curls into submission, and he was wearing a plain, but at least clean, orange T-shirt and jeans. By contrast, Jason had donned a cool blue button-down and pressed dress pants. (Every so often she caught him fidgeting with his outfit, but he looked divine.)

"Hey, Leo! Hey, Piper," Jason said, a dazed grin spreading across his face. "Did you find us okay?"

"Yea, we have a rad GPS," Leo butted in, with a look of smug pleasure that told Reyna he'd probably had something to do with the device. Fixed it with duct tape after breaking it, maybe.

Jason took Piper's jacket, and as he hung it on the back of the door, Piper and Reyna watched each other, sized each other up. Leo fidgeted and bounced and awkwardly looked around until the girls took a step toward each other.

Reyna held out her hand first. That made her the bigger person, right? "I'm Reyna."

Piper looked at her hand and then took it, her grip just confident enough to suggest worry. "Piper. Piper McLean. We're in World Myth together, right?"

Reyna nodded, wishing Jason would return to her side a little faster. "All four of us, yes." The other girl had a pleasant voice, easy to listen to, and Reyna considered that she could see why Jason was so taken with her. Not that a pretty face and a pretty voice changed the fact that Reyna was taken with Jason herself.

"Do you guys have a dog?" Leo asked. "It smells like dog in here."

He didn't seem to actually mind, but Reyna had to clench her jaw. The apartment smelled like dog? Shit! Way to come off as crazed, unclean dog freaks. "I have two greyhounds. They're in their kennels right now."

Leo and Piper both perked up a little. "Ooh," Leo said. "Can I see them?"

As satisfying as it would be to see Aurum and Argentum sink their teeth into him . . . Her eyes narrowed in what was almost a sarcastic smile. "It would be best to leave them alone. They're not exactly friendly."

"Don't worry,  _I'm_  friendly," he said with a suggestive wink.

"We've got dinner ready if you guys are hungry," Jason started, gesturing toward the kitchen, to their right. Right on cue, Piper's stomach growled, and she gave an embarrassed laugh.

"I'm super hungry," Leo agreed with a grin. Reyna half expected him to go in and help himself, but he only bounced and waited until she glided into the kitchen herself, and then the other three trailed along behind her like ducklings.

"I—we—made stir fry. It's vegetarian," she said to Piper, who visibly brightened, "and pretty healthy besides. There's green peppers, broccoli, mushrooms, chickpeas, water chestnuts, egg, basil, and rosemary. Bit of soy sauce. I hope that's okay."

"Sounds perfect," Piper enthused.

Leo said nothing, but he was giving bedroom eyes to the glass bowl.

Jason gave a subtle thumbs-up.

Reyna picked up the first plate from the stack on the counter, peeled the warm plastic wrap off the top of the glass bowl, spooned a serving onto her plate, and then moved out of the way and set the plate down at her place, the head of the table. She said aloud, "And we have milk, water, juice, Coke, help yourselves," as she pulled out a glass cup and poured herself some skim milk.

She glanced over, saw Jason serving Piper her portion of stir fry, and turned away to take her first deep swig. This was going to be a long evening.

* * *

Jason shook his head, combing his fingers through his short hair. "It's really not that hard. Anyone could do what I do."

"Says the  _starter_  quarterback," Leo pointed out. "I think you're confused, man."

Piper traced her index finger over Jason's biceps, apparently for the sole purpose of making him blush. Then she blushed too, and she jerked her hand away from his arm. "Sorry."

He made a muffled noise that sounded like "It's okay."

"Anyway," she started again, "what I was going to say was, I'd like to see you try to teach Leo to play football."

Jason grinned, while Leo wheeled his hands in front of himself defensively. "Beauty queen, I told you, sports and the Super-Sized McShizzle do not mix."

"Because he's a klutz," Piper confided to Jason, her smile glinting in her eyes, teasing but friendly.

"I am not! I just don't have to be able to kick a field goal to fix a broken carburetor. And a field goal isn't going to save you on a back road when your car breaks down."

"Excuse you, my car is perfect."

Reyna watched in silence, tracing circles on the underside of the table. Piper and Leo (and Jason too, though she hadn't realized it before) had a gift for witty banter; she suspected they could go back and forth for hours without getting bored. Unfortunately, neither wit nor social confidence came easily for her, and while her eyes sometimes creased in a tense almost-smile, she spent most of the time mentally measuring the ever-decreasing space between Jason and Piper.

It was pathetic. At least she could admit that to herself.

"Can we sit in the living room?" Leo asked suddenly, glancing back and forth between Jason and Reyna like a child who wasn't sure if Dad or Mom would be more likely to say yes. (The marital comparison kicked Reyna in the stomach as soon as she thought it.)

"Sure," Jason said easily, and he scooted his chair back so he could help Piper up. The two of them took the couch ( _the loveseat,_  sang Reyna's smug subconscious), leaving Leo and Reyna to the two armchairs.

"You have a really nice place," Piper said, looking appreciatively around the largest room of the apartment. "You keep it up really well. Mine's usually a pigsty."

Jason laughed and shifted toward her with a well-placed stretch. "You should have seen us running around ea—" he began, but he cut off when, warm-faced, Reyna gave him a sharp look and shook her head no.

Leo caught the motion. "Oh, no," he gasped, slapping his hands on his armrests and leaning toward her in mock horror. "Student government . . . occasionally has a messy apartment? Say it isn't so. I may need to stage a coup now."

Piper and Jason laughed, but Reyna's fake-laugh quota was already run out, and she shot him a cold look. "Some people take pride in having things put together."

"You know, if I were in charge of the alphabet, I'd put  _U_  and  _I_  together," he said brightly, but Reyna was having none of it anymore.

"You don't know me," she snapped.

He held up his hands in surrender, those stupid trickster eyebrows going a mile high. "Whoa there,  _reina_. I was kidding. You do know what  _kidding_  is, right?"

Jason leaned forward and muttered, "Not helping, man."

In one fluid motion, Reyna got up from her armchair, her full-body ache back in full force. "I'm going to do dishes," she said stiffly, but Jason gave her sad eyes and waved for her to stay.

"Come on, Leo'll shut up," he promised. "Ten more minutes. The dishes can wait."

She highly doubted that Jason could actually convince Leo to shut up, but she sank back into her seat, the muscles in the small of her back pinching tight. She gritted her teeth together and kept herself angled toward Jason and Piper, away from Leo. Surprisingly, the couple caused her less physical pain.

"So did you guys go for N-and-A coffee every night, or did you start that just when I started working there?" Piper teased Jason.

He laughed and settled closer to her. "Don't flatter yourself. Reyna just doesn't like strong coffee."

This was a relatively safe topic. "If it tastes like coffee, I don't want to taste it," Reyna agreed.

Leo made a slight whining noise, like Aurum did when he was being taunted with a treat he couldn't have. Piper gave him a look. "You've tried the shops in town, then?" she said to the hosts.

"We don't care for them as much." Reyna smoothed the fabric on her armchair.

"'We'?" Jason asked, shooting her a go-easy smile. " _You_ , maybe."

She shrugged unapologetically. "What can I say? I have high standards." Not just for coffee, either.

Whining again, Leo threw his hands up. "Okay, if I'm not allowed to flirt and I'm not allowed to be funny, is it okay if I go heat up some of the leftovers?"

Piper's jaw dropped. "We just finished eating! Where did you put it?"

"Hollow leg, I think," he grinned, shaking his left foot.

Anything to get him out of her living room. Reyna waved him off in assent. "Sure. Do you need a new plate?"

"Nah, I'll just rinse the one from dinner."

Her nose wrinkled, but hey, it was one less dish to wash, so she didn't complain. Settling back into her armchair, she sighed and turned to join in Jason and Piper's conversation about possible alternate "Freshman Threes," whatever that was. From the kitchen she heard dishware clanking on countertop, the microwave door opening and closing with a suction-y thunk, the buttons beeping, and the machine humming as it warmed the food. Standard enough.

"Favorite breed of dog, allergies, and movie you'd most like to throw out a window," Piper was suggesting, laughter in her voice, when Reyna heard the popping.

"Everything okay in there?" Jason called.

"Uh, I think so," Leo called back. "Uhh . . . does your microwave normally make weird—?" Then he yelped a strangled Spanish profanity as something exploded.

Reyna bolted out of her chair and threw herself forward, sprinting into the kitchen, Jason and Piper right behind her. Dirty smoke streamed out of the door cracked open; flames arched into the cabinet. Leo leaned into the sink, filling up a cup of water as fast as he could.

Oh god. Oh god oh god oh god.

Her stomach plummeting to her feet, hairs standing up on the back of her neck, Reyna swallowed anger and fear and immediately jerked into control. "Put down the water, it'll make it worse!" she barked at Leo. Then, to Jason: "Get the fire extinguisher out of the closet! Now!"

He ran for it. Piper froze in place: "What can I do?"

The smoke detector began to screech, methodical beeps piercing Reyna's eardrums. "Turn that off," she yelled over the noise. Piper nodded and pulled out a chair from around the kitchen table, Jason returned with the fire extinguisher, and Reyna shoved Leo out of the way so she could hose down her microwave and flaming cabinets.

The foam immediately suffocated the fire, but the cabinets were still glazed dirt-grey from the smoke in the air. The smoke alarm squealed out of existence, and Piper jumped to the ground with the plastic white circle in her hand. Jason reached over the sink to open the window. Reyna stood there breathing heavily for a moment, the canister shaking in her hands.

Leo, pale as he held out his hands, insisted apologetically, "I don't know what happened, I swear I didn't—"

"I need you to leave," Reyna said.

"I'm not that—"

"Now," she said.

For a moment no one moved, and then Jason touched his hand to the small of Piper's back. "Let's get your jacket," he apologized, and they walked to the closet together, speaking in undertones. Still looking at Reyna, Leo backed up, his hands slowly falling back to his sides. She didn't move.

Jason opened the apartment door, leaned in to kiss Piper on the cheek (they both turned bright pink), and then let her and Leo out. Only after he'd shut the door did Reyna move, setting down the fire extinguisher with a shudder and dragging herself back into the living room, where she dropped into her armchair, throat burning from smoke and frustration, and hid her face in her hands.

After a minute she felt Jason's hand, solid on her back. Between her shoulder blades, much higher than it'd been on Piper's. "Thank you for doing this for me," he said quietly. "I'm sorry."

Keeping her hands over her face, she mumbled, "Let the dogs out. I need to go for a run."


	5. Boundaries

 

The next day's World Mythology class was awkward. Understandably so. After all, Reyna was refusing to acknowledge Leo's existence entirely, and Jason invited Piper to come sit on his other side. And she did, and the entire class pretended not to see them holding hands under the table. (The entire class other than Leo, who occasionally elbowed her, hummed "Here Comes the Bride," and tossed little metal rings at them.)

Reyna wanted to shoot herself.

Thankfully, Annabeth picked up on her foul mood and enlisted Percy to help distract her. As soon as Mr. D told them all to break up in groups to discuss the chapter, the pair pulled Reyna over, preventing Jason and his new best friend from asking her to join them. Needing to be distracted wasn't her first choice for life situations, but she took the grace extended to her.

"Are we supposed to memorize any of this for the test?" Percy asked. Bless him. His obliviousness came in handy sometimes.

Annabeth flipped through the chapter, sucking on the inside of her cheek. "The Greek gods, major and minor, I think, and the name changes when they went Roman."

"That should be fine," Reyna said. The Roman versions had always come more easily to her, and half of the things in this town were named after the Greeks, making it in effect a cheat sheet for remembering those.

From behind her, Jason said something in an undertone that made Piper laugh out loud. Reyna rotated her jaw.

"Reyna," Annabeth prompted, "what do you think?"

Shit. Her attention had wandered. "About what?"

"I thought the chapter sounded a little biased," she repeated promptly. "You know, bitter about Rome conquering Greece."

"Oh." Quickly she reviewed in her mind—she remembered strong language.  _Violent, ruin, denigrate_. "I thought it was unfair to the Romans. I mean, they were able to blend all these different cultures and mythologies, which takes skill."

"It takes skill to steal other people's ideas?" Percy countered.

Reyna could feel the defensiveness rising, welling in her gut, hot and angry, even though she knew full well this argument wasn't worth it. "Yes. Any good government has to do that to some extent. And Rome was solid, it lasted."

"But the Greeks came up with most of that stuff first."

"But it never would have gotten anywhere if not for the Romans."

"Guys," Annabeth started, but Mr. D thunked his travel mug of not-coffee on the tech cart, effectively cutting all discussion short.

"Did we come to a consensus?" the adjunct asked, looking around. He was met with silence. "No? Great. I don't really care. Read, don't read. I love failing people." He gave a very fake smile; a few of the freshmen who'd never had him before looked at each other with terror in their eyes. "Peter Johnson."

"It's Percy Jackson," Percy said flatly.

"You plan to fail my class?"

"Not if it means I have to take it again."

"Good, then we're agreed. Don't slack on this project, then."

"What p—?"

Then Mr. D dropped a stack of paper onto the tech cart, the muffled  _thud_  making the cart shake. "Syllabus change. I'm canceling the fifth exam, the essay-based one—"

Half the class cheered, wolf-whistled, attempted to club-dance in their chairs.

He rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his loud leopard-print shirt until they quieted. "—and I'm replacing it with a 15-page research paper."

The cheers immediately died. Someone, maybe Callie, squeaked, "What?"

"Fif _teen_?" Percy hissed at Annabeth, who smacked one hand on his arm as she scribbled notes about the new assignment.

"Can we write it in groups?" suggested a girl named Silena from the back.

"Nope. No groups," Mr. D said. He handed one of the folders to Jason, who immediately stood and began to pass them out. Reyna took hers without looking him in the eye and glanced over it: the assignment seemed straightforward enough. "I want you to submit topics individually by Friday. Turabian style, 12-pt Times New Roman, 1.5-spaced. Minimum 10 sources, and 7 should be print."

A guy in the back choked.

"There's a campus library," said the prof. "Time to go say hello to it." He took a swig from his travel mug. "Now, someone tell me three of the factors that led to Greece falling to Rome. Annabelle."

* * *

Piper felt bad for Leo: at the end of class he jumped the table to try to apologize again to Reyna, only for her to sweep past him, chin high as she pointedly carried on talking to Annabeth and Percy. But she didn't feel so bad for him that her own mood was dampened, because she was on a hell of a high. Not an actual high; she tried drugs in high school once and hated feeling out of control. No, this high was pure endorphins, brought to her from Jason's hand in hers and Jason's eyes and Jason's smile and, oh god,  _Jason_.

This was stupid. She felt like singing, dancing, smiling all day long. How was that even possible? Stupid, stupid. But she wouldn't have traded it for anything.

"Want to do something tonight?" the blond asked, hiking his book bag over his shoulder as he fell into step on her right, walking out the door with her.

 _Yes!_  she wanted to laugh, but she cocked her head and tugged on the back of his bag. "Yeah, because last night went so well."

He chuckled, self-consciously rubbing the back of his neck. "Okay, yeah, that could have ended on a better note. But if we went somewhere where we were less likely to catch things on fire . . . ?" He looked down at her hopefully, his scar crinkling as he smiled.

Someone tugged one of Piper's braids, and she turned to see Leo bounce up on her left, hooking his arm through hers. "So I hear we're going out?"

Piper glanced up at Jason, indecisive. She didn't blame Leo at all for last night, but she had kind of been hoping to have some time alone with the VP. "I—"

"Sure," Jason offered, squeezing her hand lightly as if to say  _it's okay_. "Reyna's going out running tonight, so she can't make it, but we can be a trio, that's cool too."

She wondered if Reyna had instructed him to say that.

"What time?" Leo asked. "I have all these ladies asking for dates . . ." He gestured broadly to the wide berth their female classmates were giving him.

"I'm basically free," Jason shrugged. "What time works for you guys?"

"Anytime after five," Piper said, and Leo nodded.

"Want to do six again?" asked the blond.

"Sounds good, bro." Leo clapped Jason on the shoulder and darted away; he was late for calc, if Piper remembered his schedule right. Not that she was complaining—this left her with an exemplary guy in an emptying hallway.

"Where do you want to go?" he prompted her.

 _McDonald's_ , she was tempted to joke, but she suppressed the urge just in case he took her seriously. "Surprise me," she teased, tugged him by the bag again. It would be interesting to see what he planned, what he thought she might like. (She and Leo. But mostly her.)

"Oh. Okay." He looked off into the distance and stroked his chin, pretending to ponder the options.

She shoved him playfully. "Come on. There's like three restaurants in town. Pick one."

He looked back at her, a gleam in his eye. He grinned and rolled his shoulders. "Oh, I'm not limiting myself to this town. I'll pick you up at six, then?"

"Sounds perfect." She beamed, rocked up on her toes, and immediately wanted to kick herself. What was she, a lovesick 12-year-old? But she couldn't wipe the smile off her face.

He beamed as well. "Perfect," he echoed. "So where are you heading now?"

She had to think about it.  _Lemme see, it's Friday, 3:00, we just got out of World Myth . . ._  "I'm going to Cell Bio. You?"

He grimaced. "Work. Namely  _paper_ work. Goodie."

Piper patted him on the arm. "Just think of the wonderful evening ahead of you," she suggested, throwing one arm up around his shoulders to tug him into her.  _Teasing, teasing, always teasing,_  she reminded herself, trying to maintain some mental distance from the smell of him. "There'll probably be witty banter, you know, yummy food, kitchen appliances in flames—"

"No, we're trying to  _avoid_  that one," Jason laughed. But he made no effort to extricate himself from her almost-hug, which was a good sign.

* * *

At 6 pm exactly, Jason pulled into the short driveway and parked behind a dilapidated Geo. The lights were on outside the tiny house, but no one was at the window and there were no characteristics distinguishing it as Piper and Leo's. He glanced at the address Piper had scribbled on a Post-It note.

Yes, he had the right place. He strained to see inside, looking for some hint as to what she expected of him.  _Is she coming out? Or should I go get her?_ he wondered, his fingers drumming an anxious beat against the steering wheel. Honking was rude.  _I'll just go up,_  he decided.

Taking a deep breath, he kneed open his door, buried his hands in the pockets of his jacket, and made his way to the door.

 _Please be here_ , he prayed, and he pressed his thumb to the translucent doorbell. From inside he heard the muffled  _ding-a-dongggg_ , followed by a high-pitched "go get it!" and the pounding of feet, and then the door opened, Annabeth leaning nonchalantly against the doorframe.

"Hi," Jason said in surprise. "Are you housesitting for them?"

She gave him a strange look. "I am half of 'them.'"

He squinted.

"Piper and I live here. Leo lives in—well, he basically lives here, but he sleeps at his own place."

Piper and Leo weren't roommates? This was news. He had just assumed they had an arrangement like his and Reyna's, the platonic best friends roommateship. Okay. Quick adjustment of worldview—and he was good.

"You want to come in?" Annabeth offered, but then from further inside the house Piper called, "I'm ready, I'm coming!"

A door slammed, and Piper flew into the hall, and if Jason had thought she looked amazing on Thursday he was absolutely floored now. She was rarely one to dress up, but she'd put on a slinky green shirt over a short, flared black skirt and tights. Her little black heels clicked on the linoleum. When she noticed he was staring she turned a little pink and ran her fingers through her shiny hair, ruffling in exactly the right places. Had he ever met anyone who looked more gorgeous without trying?

"Wow," said Jason.

Annabeth and Piper shared some sort of secret girl communication, their eyes crinkling and their lips turning up almost in sync. The former swatted the latter on the rear and then walked away, leaving the two blushing idiots in the foyer.

"Did you find the house okay?" Piper asked her feet.

"Yeah," Jason told his own. It was safer than trying to make eye contact; looking at her somehow made him incoherent. He screwed up his courage to glance up at her and say, "You look really nice."

He had hoped to keep the awe out of his voice, but he didn't do a very good job, and she seemed to mistake it for surprise. She planted one hand on her hip and cocked her head with a playful smile. "What, unlike all the other times you've seen me?"

"No, that wasn't what I—" he started, anxiety making a little ball in his gut, but then she began to laugh and it dissipated. "Is Leo here?" he asked, though he doubted it because he couldn't hear him.

As expected, Piper shook her head no. "He's actually coming straight from work. He's changing my oil."

He looked at the wall between him and the driveway as if he might have developed X-ray vision in the last ten seconds. "Is that not your car out there?"

Piper looked mildly offended. "No, the Geo's Annabeth's. It barely manages to toodle around town."

 _How is this girl even real?_  "So what do you drive, then?" he asked, suspecting she might answer with more than a brand and a color.

He was right. With no small satisfaction, Piper said, "I drive a 2010 silver Chevy Malibu mega-hybrid. You better believe he gets 150 mpg on the highway."

"I didn't think Malibu hybrids usually did that well."

Her smile widened. "They don't. Leo made some modifications."

"Are we discussing my awesomeness?" Leo asked as he let himself in, leaving the door open as he wiped his hands on his shirt, which made his hands the only clean part of him. His shirt, jeans, and tennis shoes were spackled with grime; it didn't look like he'd even tried to clean up after work. Maybe because he didn't have anyone to impress?

"Are we ready to go, or do you guys need to stand around and compliment each other some more?" Leo prompted, having gotten no response to his first question.

"We're ready, we're ready," Piper said, Leo swept his arms through the open door, and the three of them filed out into the evening air, Piper calling out a goodbye to Annabeth.

Jason's Civic was idling in the driveway, the headlights casting a yellow glow on Annabeth's Geo. Leo hopped in the backseat and reached up to play with the radio until the speakers blasted "Never Gonna Give You Up" with the bass turned all the way up. Piper laughed, rolling her eyes, and Jason hoped he wasn't blushing as he opened the passenger door for her.

* * *

It took half an hour to get to the restaurant Jason had picked out. Half an hour full of  _are we there yets_  and  _seriously Jason just tell me where we're goings_. But then they pulled up into a small-town parking lot and walked into Sunrise Café, an organic/vegetarian place tucked into this little corner of nowhere. The lighting was low, mostly white Christmas lights strung all around the walls. Leo rambled about the electricity needs, but Jason just thought the glow suited Piper really well.

"This place is amazing," Piper said through a mouthful of tofu spaghetti. "How did you even find it?"

Jason gestured vaguely with his fork. "My half-sister Thalia introduced me. When she's around, we come here a lot, mostly so we don't have to eat with our stepmom." Guilt twisted in his stomach for admitting it, but that didn't make it any less true.

Leo actually chewed and swallowed his bite of burrito. "I didn't know your dad remarried."

Jason shifted in his seat. "Um, yeah."

"You have any stepsiblings?"

"Nope."  _Got a lot of unacknowledged halves though,_ he finished silently, trying to pretend that made him honest. "What about you guys, got brothers and sisters?"

Piper gave him a squinty look that made him wonder if they'd already discussed this. "Nah, 's just me."

"Samesies," Leo chirped in a falsetto, scrunching up his shoulders and fluttering his eyelashes like a junior-high girl.

He moved on to the next logical topic: "What about your parents? Talk to them any?"

Wrong move.

Piper and Leo froze, their silverware halfway to their mouths as their expressions shut down. A nerve ticked in Leo's jaw, and Piper made an angry noise as she opened and shut her mouth.

"That's a no?" Jason stammered, feeling his confidence splinter and crumble. He scrambled for something new, a distraction. "Sorry. I didn't—um." He racked his brain and found nothing. Not a single topic. And his two companions were dead silent.

By the grace of God, Piper took pity on him. "Look. It's . . ." She looked down at her spaghetti and speared her fork into it, her brow creasing. "It's just not . . . That's not really a thing that we talk about. Sorry."

He was curious what stories they had with their parents to cause such a strong reaction, but he was well aware he'd overstepped a boundary there, so he could wait to ask about it. Instead he went back to safe territory. "You guys going to come to the football game tomorrow?"

The two of them glanced at each other, shrugged, and looked back to him.

"We don't usually," Leo said.

"But we can," Piper offered. "Do you, um, do you want us to?"

"Yeah, I'd love for you to come," Jason said, his eyes never leaving Piper's. He didn't clarify whether his  _you_  was singular or plural. "Will your car be drivable by then?"

Without saying a word she glanced at Leo, whose jaw dropped like he'd been slapped. "Of course he'll be drivable by then!" he said, slapping one hand over his heart. "Katoptris is just taking a nap while his oil settles. Beckendorf is watching him while I'm out."

"Katoptris?" Jason asked.

Piper talked right over him. "It  _will_  be Beckendorf, right?" she asked, crossing her arms over her chest suspiciously. "Not the intern like last time?"

"Yes, I told him specifically not to delegate it to the intern," Leo sighed.

"Guys," Jason said. "Katoptris?"

"Oh, he's her Malibu," Leo said. " _I_  wanted to name him something cool, like Body Smasher, but she said no."

"Actually, I said  _hell_  no," she corrected him. "Like 'Festus' is cool."

"'Festus' is so cool!" Leo protested. When Jason's nose crinkled in confusion, the Latino guy explained, "Festus is  _my_  ride. Basically the most kickass car this side of the millennium. Gold Camaro with black accents,  _50_  mpg,  _7_ -speed manual overdrive, real badass. Like dragon-level badass."

Those specs sounded almost as insane as Piper's miles-per-gallon. But Jason had taken Latin in high school. "So you named it 'Happy'?"

Piper kicked Leo's chair triumphantly. "Ha! I  _told_  you that's what it means."

Leo pushed her away. His light expression seemed fixed in place, colder around the eyes. "Screw off, it's not . . .  _Dios mio_. It's just not."

"Where did you guys pick up your cars?" Jason asked reverently. Reyna had bought her Mustang herself, and his Civic was barely any better than Annabeth's Geo.

In perfect unison, Piper and Leo snorted, suppressing grins, and sort of curled toward each other like they were sharing a secret.

"Uh . . . mine was a gift," Leo smirked.

"Mine too," she agreed hastily, tugging on one of her braids.

Jason eyed them both. He wasn't as good at detecting lies as Reyna's dogs were, but they were obviously not telling him the truth, or at least not the whole truth. "Come on."

Piper scooped a big forkful of spaghetti into her mouth and shrugged. Leo studied the ceiling.

"Right," Jason sighed. Maybe they weren't close enough for the Parents and Cars talks yet. He sipped from his glass of water and listened as Leo began to ponder the restaurant's security system.

* * *

"That stuff was super good. Good choice, bro," Leo commended Jason as the trio shouldered through the restaurant doors out into the dark. "I did like that stuff Reyna made yesterday, though. What was that, stir fry? That was the best."

"You could learn to make stir fry," Piper teased him. "If you ever cooked."

"I can cook!" he protested. "I  _can_. Just because I  _don't_ —"

"Is a pretty good proof that you can't put your money where your mouth is," Jason suggested with a grin.

Leo gasped and shoved him on the shoulder. It barely made an impact, but Jason pretended to reel from it. "Ruuude," the shorter boy crowed as he climbed into the backseat of the Civic.

"Speaking of rude," Piper said from the passenger's side, "can we talk about that research paper from today?"

Jason dropped into the driver's seat and started the car. He said nothing, hoping the topic would pass over, but the other two latched onto it.

"Can you believe Mr. D?" Leo huffed. "All of a sudden it goes from Test I Can BS With 20 Minutes Of Studying to Research Paper I  _Have_  To BS After Hours Of Researching And Writing. That's not cool, bro."

"Fifteen pages," she grimaced, in the same tone one might say  _genital herpes_. "I swear none of our profs think we take any other classes."

Jason gave a small noncommittal smile. His dad complained enough about the faculty that he himself had to defend them half the time. By the grace of God, Reyna rarely complained about her classes, or discussed them at all, really. "I'm sure there's a good reason for the change."

Leo gave him a strange look. "I dunno, man."

"I mean, essays are harder to grade than multiple-choice tests, right?" Piper asked. "So it's not like he made it easier for himself here."

"Maybe the test would have been really hard, and he's helping us out?" Jason offered.

"Right," Leo snorted.

Piper rubbed her arms fiercely. "It looks really hard, Jason. And I'm saying that as an okay writer."

"What if we worked together on it?" Jason suggested suddenly, hoping to improve the mood. "We could study together, like in the library or something, and bounce ideas off each other and stuff. We can't help each other  _write_  the papers, necessarily, but it might make it easier to get there."

Leo and Piper looked at each other quietly again, and for a moment he was afraid studying together was as taboo as parents and cars. But then Piper nodded slowly. "That might be good. Would that be okay?"

"Oh, yeah." It'd be more than okay, if it meant Jason got to spend more time with her. "You want to, then?"

"Sounds good," she said, and he glanced from the road for a second so he could look at her smile.

"Me too," Leo piped up from the back, ruining any possible mood. "Writing's not really my thing."

"It's a plan, then," the blond said.

A half hour drive later, Jason dropped Leo and Piper off at Leo's work, watched to make sure they got inside the garage, and then drove back to the apartment. He wasn't sure when he opened the door whether or not Reyna would still be awake, but he came in the hallway and saw her curled up in her armchair, reading by the light of one lamp, the dogs sitting watch at her feet.

"Hey," he said softly, not wanting to startle her.

She looked up and closed her book. "How did it go?"

"It was great." The conversation and the company equally so, even with a few social slip-up.

She gave a thin smile, barely there. She was probably really tired.

"You shouldn't have waited up for me," he said; "it's late."

She shrugged, held up her book. "Wanted to get some reading done," she said. He didn't believe her, but he didn't push it.

"Listen," he started, "while I've got you here—we were talking tonight about that research paper, the huge one for World Myth. The three of us, we think, we're going to work together, study together, that sort of thing. Just to make it more bearable, bounce ideas off each other. You want to join us?"

She looked at the dogs. "The three of you . . . you, Piper, and Leo?"

"Yeah."

"No, thanks," she said, her tone crisp. "I appreciate the offer, but I work pretty well alone. I think I can figure it out."

He shrugged, which was a whole lot easier than trying to get any more information out of her. He knew from personal experience that when Reyna didn't want to talk about something, she shut down until she was ready to address it. Maybe she just needed more time to get over the double date from hell. "Okay. Your choice. If you change your mind, you're always welcome."

She laughed once, under her breath, and whispered something that sounded like a sarcastic  _right_.


	6. Sweat

The apartment door creaked open as Reyna leaned onto it, Aurum and Argentum panting at her feet. She could feel the sweat sticking to her back and diaphragm; she would probably need to rinse her T-shirt and shorts out now just to keep them from stinking up her entire laundry basket. Kicking off her running shoes, she clicked her tongue and, when the obedient greyhounds sat, rubbed them down quickly with a wet towel before letting them trot off to lie down.

"Jason?" she called, and he popped his head out of his room, headphones dangling from his ears.

"You have a good run?" he asked, pitching his voice a little too loud. She gestured to her ears, and he pulled the earbuds out with an abashed grin.

"Yeah, it was fine," she sighed, crossing her arms as she leaned against the wall. "Went seven miles today.  _Ay_."

He flashed her a thumbs-up. "Good job. Should I use the bathroom now, while I can?"

She smiled faintly and nodded, her eyes closing. He laughed and, when he came back out, tossed her a purple towel from the linen closet. She caught it with one hand and then let herself into the bathroom, turning on the shower to let the water heat up as she undressed.

After a good ten minutes of hot water pounding on her achy muscles, she wrung her hair out and dried off, wrapping the towel around herself so she could skip into her bedroom, right across from the bathroom. Pulling on underwear, loose jeans, and a tank top, she began the long task of suppressing the tangled mane of her wet hair.

A soft knock came from the other side of her door.

"You can come in," she said, and the door opened tentatively. Jason peeked around to make sure he wasn't going to knock into her and then flopped down on her bed, stretching with the liquidity of a cat. "How can I help you?" she asked as she tugged her brush through the lowest layer of dark waves.

He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. "You coming to the game?"

She cocked her head and smiled. "No, I've suddenly decided to break my eleven-year streak of attending all your home sports events," she teased him. "No hurt feelings, right?"

"I might cry myself to sleep," he said, laughing.

As she swept her hair over her other shoulder and began to brush through it all again, she reached out and nudged him with her foot. "Was there a reason you were so anxious to find out?"

He reached up to rub the back of his neck. She looked away. "Look, it's—it's probably not going to be anything," he started, "but I invited Piper and Leo to the game, and I didn't know if you might sit with them?"

She pursed her lips and continued to brush.

"Of course you don't have to if you don't want to," he continued in a rush. "But I thought it might be nice, since they don't seem to have a ton of other people they hang out with. And—"

And then he fell silent, which told Reyna something bigger was at play.

"And what?" she sighed.

"And," Jason said hesitantly, "I'm thinking I'm going to ask Piper out after the game. Like on a real date. With dating words."

Her breath caught in her throat. She swallowed hard, glancing at him to see his expression. He looked equal parts hopeful and anxious, his mouth a thin line as he looked at her, waited for her approval.

"'Dating words,'" she said quietly. "Like 'girlfriend'?"

"Yeah."

Oh god. Feeling her calves start to tremble, she stood up and walked up to the mirror on her door, combing her hair back from her face and beginning the long, single French braid. "So you want, what, advice? My blessing?"

When she twisted her whole torso to look at him, he was looking back at her, his lips still pressed together. "What do you think?" he asked.

 _I think I've liked you since junior high, and I've waited for you to make a move, but this is a really painful way for you to tell me it's not going to happen._ She yanked the three strands tight and twisted a small elastic band around the end of the braid. Smoothing her fingers over it to distract herself, she said, "I think she likes you. Go for it."

He let out a big breath and smiled at her. She scrunched up her eyes but couldn't quite manage a full smile in return.

Her hair was still wet when she pulled on her sneakers and walked over to the university football field an hour later. She flashed her student ID to the guy selling tickets, and he let her pass on to the bleachers. This was a big game, with a big crowd to match. The place was packed. Trying to ignore the anxiety rising in her throat, she glanced over the masses, looking for a familiar face. Annabeth or Percy, maybe. Instead her gaze landed on Piper.

The choppy-haired girl was sitting toward the middle, by herself, as far as Reyna could see.  _All right, time to be an adult,_  she told herself. She inched through the crowded bleachers, excusing herself as she squeezed past people. This felt like it ought to be an Olympic sport—not quite pole-vaulting or hurdles, but in that same vein. She could feel herself going more rigid with every person she touched, her arms and legs tensing, ready to fight. Racing with adrenaline, her pulse pounded in her temples, and her nails dug into her palms.  _Walk, just walk_ , she coached herself.  _You're okay. It's fine._  Somehow that didn't help at all. The nauseating memories still crept into the back of her head.

It was actually a relief when Piper looked over and waved at her. Reyna picked her way over and set her jacket down on the bleachers next to her. "Hello," she said politely.

"Hey." Piper smiled, and it only looked a little forced. "You almost missed kickoff." She jerked one thumb toward the football field, where both teams were gathering on the spray-painted grass.

Reyna jumped in surprise when she heard Leo's loud laugh from right beside her—when had he arrived?—and when she turned he tried to squeeze past her. They were closer than she liked and though he gave a friendly smile, she stumbled and it was overshadowed by his hand that landed on her waist.

_Touch. Close. Too close._

The anxiety that had been building in her exploded. She raked her own hand down her sides, shoving him away and stumbling into the row behind her.

"Don't touch me," she commanded, but her voice cracked. "Don't . . ."

He had frozen, confusion etched on his face. "I didn't mean to—"

"Just don't," she repeated, and as the burst of anxiety drained away, she realized that the people in the bleachers had gone silent around them. She lifted her chin and looked them all hard in the eyes until they averted their eyes and resumed their conversations.

Piper cleared her throat. "Um, Leo, come sit down."

Carefully avoiding physical contact with Reyna, he inched past both girls and slumped into the seat on Piper's other side as a piercing whistle marked the beginning of the game.

* * *

As soon as the game was over, Jason grabbed his stuff from the locker room and trotted out to the fence that separated the field from the bleachers. Three figures, silhouetted by the bright lights, leaned against it. He aimed for them.

The tallest turned first—Reyna—and waved to him. Piper and Leo, shorter and shortest, immediately followed her example. He thought he saw Piper slip Leo something, but it must have been a trick of the light glaring in his face.

"Good game, as usual," Reyna called as he approached.

Leo mimed throwing a football and then doing a victory dance, complete with butt-wiggling. "Another single-handed touchdown by Graaaaace!" he howled in his best announcer voice, and then he dissolved into laughter.

"That's not how football works." Piper rolled her eyes before turning toward Jason, wrinkling her nose, and telling him, "You stink."

Reyna cracked a smile.

Jason grinned, hopped up on the bench so he was at eye level with them, and spread his arms wide. "Have I ever told you guys how much I like you?" he teased, leaning in like he wanted to give them a hug, well aware that his clothes were soaked in sweat and he smelled like post-game locker room.

The three leaned away just as quickly. "Blech!" Piper made a face, but she was also the first to bounce back.

He grinned at her, knocking his chest against the fence so that the metal rattled. "Do you have to run home, or do you have a little bit?"

Her expression twitched slightly, happy but suspicious. "I have a little bit. Let's not assume I'm doing my homework or anything crazy like that."

"Me either!" Leo said brightly. "Why, are we going out again? 'Cause I'm starving."

Jason gave him an apologetic smile. "I was actually . . . uh, gonna talk to just Piper on this one. Sorry, man."

Leo pretended to reel. "Oh, geez, dude. It hurts."

Jason didn't miss the pointed expression Piper shot Leo, the one that actually made him back away. Then he looked up and Reyna had disappeared—a whip of dark braid going around the corner. As Leo tromped up to the top of the bleachers and began to crawl around looking for who knew what, this left Jason effectively alone with Piper.

Which he had wanted, but now he was considering backing out.

"So," she prompted, going a little red, "what do you need?"

He pictured himself pulling out a tux and a red rose and saying  _you_ , and he felt the blood rush to his face. "Uh . . . I just . . ."

"Here, hang on." Piper gripped the top of the fence and lifted herself up and over, raising her heels so that she didn't catch on it. A slight breeze ruffled his uniform as she landed, both feet on the grass in front of him. "There. Now I'm on your level." Relatively speaking. There was almost half a foot's difference between their heights, and she had to tilt her head up to look him in the eye. Looking down at her, he was struck by how easy it would be to kiss her. Just close the space. One step forward.

He felt his face heat up even more. What had he been going to say?

She raised her eyebrows and bounced on the balls of her feet, clearly wondering the same thing.

"So, have you ever played football?" he asked, wincing as soon as the words came out of his mouth.

"Mm, nooo," Piper said, her eyes and mouth scrunching up in confusion.

He hadn't meant to bring this up, but at least football he could talk about. "It's, um, it's pretty fun. There's, you know, a team and stuff. We practice every day."

"Yyyyep."

Better just go with it. "We spend a lot of time together on the team," he continued. "We get to be pretty close."

Leo shouted something about a screwdriver. Jason glanced up to make sure the mechanic hadn't hurt himself before he looked back to Piper, who was still waiting for him to make his point. "That's cool," she prompted him, but her tone said  _where are you going with this?_

He coughed. "Sometimes we have team dinners and stuff. And sometimes dinner with one person on the team turns into the whole team coming to dinner, even if we didn't mean for it to."

Piper blinked twice and rose up on her toes. He thought he saw her flush a little.

"I'm friends with everybody," he said emphatically. "But there's one person I'd like to be more . . . you know?" He rolled his shoulders and hunched forward, widening his eyes.  _Come on, help me out_ , he willed her.

Then the light came on in her eyes. "Ohhh," she said, sticking her hands in her pockets. "You're gay."

"No!" Jason exclaimed, his face heating up. "I just— _You_. And me."

Her face went from slightly pink to baseball-stitches red. "Oh," she choked out.

"Yeah."

They both stared at their shoes. Jason wished he smelled like something other than locker room.

"So," she said.

"Yeah."

"Us?"

"That'd be cool," he offered.

"I think so too." In an effort to regain her composure, she looked up and threw him a part-silly, part-sultry look. "But tread carefully, Grace. I'm a dangerous girl."

He laughed. "That I can believe," he teased her. "You climb fences like nobody's business."

The two of them looked at each other for a moment, smiling like goons, and the awkwardness dissolved. "Now, you big dope," Piper prompted, shifting towards him, "are you going to kiss me, or am I going to have to go home smelling like B.O. for no good reason?"

"Given the choices," Jason began with a lopsided grin, and then he carefully tucked his hands on either side of her face and leaned down to kiss her full on the mouth, something he'd hardly dared to hope for since the first day he'd seen her in class. And maybe they were from different paths of life, and maybe she had issues with parents and getting cars, but he didn't really care. It didn't make it wrong, it just made it interesting.

Because the two of them together? That was  _right_.

* * *

Research paper time. Reyna set up the kitchen table with her laptop and textbooks and class notes, pretending that the silence didn't bother her. And usually it wouldn't, it was just today. Jason had come home, showered, and then run right back out the door for a World Myth study session at the library with his new girlfriend and her repair boy. So she had decided to get started on the paper herself, in case he came back with questions, but she wasn't exactly thrilled to work on it.

 _Stop complaining,_  she told herself.  _The sooner you get this done, the sooner you can forget about it._  So, trying to ignore the deafening silence, she glanced over the assignment sheet for the fifteenth time.

She had sent in her topic the afternoon this paper was assigned, so she had a head start there. Percy would have hated her thesis: the Roman takeover of Greece actually helped the Grecian culture because . . . and that was as far as she had gotten.

The paper specs felt impossible. How could she write such a long paper on top of all her other classes and student government responsibilities? Not that bailing out of it was an option; Reyna would rather change her major to math education than admit defeat. She would just have to put in a certain amount of time every day, and eventually it would get itself done.

 _Okay_ , she encouraged herself, looking at the all-but-blank Word document.  _Reasons for Rome improving Greece. Go._

But her mind had frozen. This was stupid; she debated this with Percy all the time. But Percy didn't require 15 pages of 1.5 spacing. What kind of outline would she need for this to meet the basic guidelines? Multiple reasons, maybe a few opposing opinions to take down. Block quotations might help. At least she would have 10 sources to quote from.

" _Ugh_ ," she said out loud, hanging her head over the back of her chair. She dropped her hand onto the keyboard, making her thesis officially "The Roman takeover of Greece actually helped the Grecian culture because ydutcvkhb." As much as Mr. D would appreciate that intellectual assertion, she held down the backspace key until she was back to square one.

Time for a bullet list brainstorming session? She sighed but, given that she was completely unmotivated for this paper right now, decided to give it a shot.  _Architecture_ , she typed, looking at the ceiling as if inspiration might float down.  _Religion. Fighting._  (She knew there was a word for what she meant, but she didn't want to linger too long looking for it.)  _Stuff._

This was going nowhere fast, and there was no way architecture, religion, fighting, and "stuff" would fill a research paper.

Rotating her jaw and pursing her lips, she looked reluctantly toward the apartment door.

* * *

Piper's fingers curled over Jason's shoulder as she collapsed into him, laughing so hard she thought she might fall over. He smelled good—a hint of aftershave, or cologne maybe, not thick in the air like a junior-high boys' locker room. Just enough. She could feel him shaking in silent laughter, and she wanted to hang onto him forever.

"What time is it even?" she asked when they'd caught their breath.

Jason glanced at his watch. "Uh, just after eight."

Leo swore brightly. "A whole three hours! Nice. Go, team."

But as the laughter subsided, Piper looked at the table—cluttered with their hibernating laptops and untouched stacks of books—and began to realize that they weren't exactly being what those in higher academia would call "productive." "Hey, guys, not to be a buzzkill, but we haven't  _done_  anything in those three hours," she said.

Jason and Leo scrunched up their mouths in unison. "Guess so," sighed Leo. "But I'd bet my next paycheck that not doing anything is way more fun than doing something."

"Maybe, but I don't want to have to graduate late just because I didn't pass a gen ed." Jason leaned forward and squiggled his finger over the mouse touchpad on his MacBook, making the screen light back up to the Google homepage. "I really don't care that much about World Myth."

Piper pointed her pencil at him. "Very true."

"This probably isn't the time to bring up my academic probation," Leo grinned.

Piper tore a piece of paper out of her notebook, wadded it up into a ball, and chucked it at his forehead. He yelped when it hit its mark.

"Guys," Jason reprimanded them. "We really have to get this done. Come on. What are your topics?"

Piper and Leo exchanged guilty looks. "Uh . . ."

"You first," she suggested.

The VP groaned. "You know Reyna's had her topic since the afternoon Mr. D assigned this, right?"

Piper felt her cheeks flush, for once not in a good way. Why did he feel the need to compare them? Her eyes on her hands, she was searching for a response when Leo switched gears: "How is Reyna? Has she, um, forgotten about the kitchen thing yet?"

"Ah, that'd be a no," Jason admitted.

Leo huffed out a breath and looked away. "Geez. It wasn't even my fault. Is that why she wouldn't come tonight? Isn't there anything I can do to—?"

"It's not that," Jason said patiently, "she just prefers to work alone. She's smart and efficient, and I think she knew that we—"

Someone rapped lightly on the door to the private study room. Prepared to sweet-talk the librarian again, Piper hopped up and cracked the door open to see . . . Reyna? The other girl stood regally straight, her laptop under her arm, her braid hanging over her shoulder.

"Hi?" said Piper. She wondered if she had heard them talking about her and, more important, why she was there in the first place. Playing chaperone, maybe?

"Hi," repeated Reyna in a whisper. Piper didn't know her very well, but she could have sworn Reyna's face was darkening a little. "Can I come in?"

"Uh . . . sure." Trying to keep a straight face, Piper stepped aside so Reyna could sweep in (there was really no other way to describe her authoritative walk) and then closed the door behind her. The president looked over their arrangement: Leo, Piper, and Jason sat around the semicircular table, with one empty chair on Jason's left and a big, blank computer monitor installed on the flat edge of the table. To Piper the next move seemed to happen in slow motion, and she couldn't quite name every emotion that coursed through her as Reyna lifted her chin and said, in a stiff tone that was intended as a statement but came out an uncertain question—

"Maybe, this once, I could join you?"

Jason smiled and pulled out the extra chair for her.


	7. Locked

 

_This is a dream. I realize this first, that something about the room or the colors or the voices coming muffled through the walls is false. A little faded, a little sepia-toned, a little fuzzy. A dream. So I fade in and out between Dream Character Me and Intangible Dreamer Me, but I don't wake up. I just know._

_Dream Character Me is sitting in my chair in the student government office, a stack of paperwork resting on my knee. Intangible Dreamer Me knows that there is supposed to be a meeting going on now, the officers should be here, but I am alone. I reach up to finger my braid and find nothing. My fingers clench over empty space, and my stomach drops. I recognize that this is only a dream, but I want my hair back._

_Setting aside the stack of papers, I look out through the glass wall. Students, warped by the glass and by dream vision, are out there. Checking mail, clustering together to chatter, nursing fresh coffee from Nectar and Ambrosia._

_Jason is out there. He has a package tucked under one arm and is leaning against the opposite wall, talking and laughing with Piper and Leo and not giving any indication that he's interested in looking my way._

_I stand up and walk over to the door, unconsciously practicing what I will say._ Do we have a meeting? _or_ Are you coming? _The vice presidency isn't his favorite thing ever, but he's as much about duty as I am, and he's never once skipped an appointment. My chest twinges as I wonder if his new friends might have a stronger hold on his loyalty now than I do._

 _I reach for the handle. My fingers curl around the cool silver, and my wrist twists to open it; I'm met with a jarring_ thunk _._

_The handle is stuck._

_I try again, hitting the same block. Anxiety rises in my throat. This door has no lock from the inside, so all I can do is jiggle the handle with increasing ferocity and call for Jason, praying that he, that someone, will see I am locked in and open the door for me._

_Dream glass is more like a one-way mirror, because no one sees me, no one hears me. The air is running thin, and the door frame is melding into the wall. Someone has locked me in here alone—who? Why?_

_I can't breathe!_

Reyna jerked upward and back, landing so that she was crouched on her knees on her bed, aware that her skin was warm and damp with sweat. The heels of her hands pressed into the mattress; her sheets were half-twisted around her and hanging onto the floor, where her pillow had fallen. Her hair was matted, sticking to her temples and cheeks. She breathed out long, slow, shaky, and sat back on her heels, trying to shake off the nasty feeling the nightmare had left her with.

Her gaze, bleary from sleep, drifted to her bedside alarm clock.  _5:03a_ , it was blinking, which surprised her, given how much sunlight was streaming through the window. She arched backward and twisted. Maybe that would get the knots out of her back. As she rested her chin on her left shoulder, she read her other clock, the analog ticking softly from across the room. That one read just past 9:00, which was strange too. It didn't usually run so fast.

She looked at it a little longer. The analog ran on battery; the bedside was plugged in. The bedside was blinking. Her eyes widened.

"Shit!" she yelped, tugging herself out of the mess of sheets and tripping over to her closet. A power outage in the middle of the night, and of course it  _had_  to be the day before the all-grades student government officers meeting. Pulling off her pajamas, she tugged on the slacks she'd worn yesterday—no! they had a stain!—she pulled those off and grabbed a pair of jeans from the closet, yanking those on instead.

She banged her elbow on the edge of her dresser and hissed a curse on all furniture designers as she groped in the first drawer for a bra. Fastening that on, from the second drawer she pulled a tank top—white? gold? it was hard to tell in this light—and slipped that on over top. Swiping a pair of socks from the still-open first drawer, she hopped to pull those on as she headed for the door, pulling a pullover off its hanger as she passed the closet again.

She fumbled to unlock her bedroom door and then ran into the kitchen, forward on her toes, leaning into the motion, easy after years of track. The taste of dry saliva still dirtied her mouth, but she didn't have time to brush her teeth (she grabbed her toothbrush and a travel toothpaste, she'd do it later), so she rinsed with a cup of cold water and then popped a piece of mint gum into her mouth. Oh, no—her hair was still a mess. She dashed back to her room and brushed it faster than she ever had before, just clipping it half-back and fluffing the waves a little. Then she grabbed her purse and her keys and her shoes and flew out the door, pounding down the hallway and out the door, almost tripping over herself as she skidded to the driver's side door of her beloved black Mustang, parked in a front-row pull-through spot.

"Come on, come on, come on," she urged herself as she fumbled with the key in the lock, eventually managing to unlock the door and throw herself into the seat. She pulled the door shut with one hand and stuck the key in the ignition. She twisted vigorously, leaving no room for uncertainty on the car's part . . . and all she heard was a muffled choking sound.

"No!" she cried, trying again. Nothing. It  _had_  to be today. She clenched her free hand so hard her nails cut into her palm, prayed  _please please please_ , and tried for a third time.

Choking, sputtering, the engine finally turned over.

"Oh, thank God," she sighed, shoving the seat belt into its buckle and pressing down on the gas pedal, pulling right around and out of the apartment building's parking lot. Of course she hit a red light straight off, but she used the minute to struggle into her pullover, and then the red flashed into green and she sped on. Five minutes of law-breaking later, she pulled into the parking lot of the student center, parked in the commuters' section, and ran inside.

Down the hall, down the stairs, and around the corner: she caught her breath just as she pushed open the door to the office, holding her chin high as all the officers who'd arrived on time looked at her in poorly concealed shock. The officers—including Jason. Their eyes met, and she narrowed hers a little, making his widen in response. They would exchange words after this.

"Good morning, Reyna," said Nico di Angelo from his black armchair against the wall, his spindly fingers interlocked over his knee. His official designated position, new this semester, Ambassador to Central Transfers, was written nowhere; yet although he rarely showed up around campus, it was impossible to forget the ghost of a sophomore.

"Good morning, Nico," she echoed, taking her seat. "Sorry I'm late." She offered no explanation as to why.

After a pause, Hazel offered, "We were talking about possible themes for the October AU." AU—a play on the university's initials. For the last full week in October, campus went all out decorating and acting as if they were in a designated "alternate universe." "Jason said last year we did a sci-fi AU, so we were thinking maybe doing time instead of genre? The 40s, maybe?"

Reyna nodded. Like Jason, Hazel hadn't volunteered to join student government at first, but after Nico, her cousin, had given her a nudge, she and her boyfriend, Frank, ran and won for the freshman class. They were active and thoughtful, which was more than she expected of most freshmen. "It would be a good change. The last thing we want is for it to look like we're replaying the same idea two years in a row. Any particular reason for the 40s?"

The younger girl blushed and shrugged.

"That's fine. Has anyone else come up with other ideas?"

"I stand by my earlier suggestion," said the Augur boy—Octavian Augur, easily the least pleasant junior to ever exist—and Reyna frowned over at him. Professor Lupa, their official faculty supervisor, was nowhere to be seen, per usual; she was a big fan of the laissez-faire approach to students' survival, a big part of how Octavian managed to hold onto his position.

"Like I've told you the last three years," she said, "the entire campus is basically a mythology AU. There's no good reason to make a week of it."

"This year is different," he countered, his voice as slick and oily as his hair and just as nauseating, making her skin crawl. "Our numbers have almost doubled with . . ." He trailed off as he, presumably, looked for a phrase that wouldn't earn him multiple demerits. ". . . Central transfers," he finally decided on. "We could quite easily set up the divide, make their half Greek and our half Roman, and let it go from there."

The sophomores and freshmen stared at their knees. Nico's olive complexion turned a little bit greyer with the dark look he was nailing the older guy with. Jason's eyebrows scrunched together, and he crossed his arms uncomfortably over his chest. "It's not us versus them. And you don't know who might have wanted to transfer either way—it just sounds like a bad idea to me. Divisive."

Reyna did feel the division, the difference, between the Central transfers and the Apollo originals more strongly than Jason did, though not as strongly as Octavian (did anyone?), but she said, "I agree. It's asking for trouble. Nico, thoughts?"

The dark ambassador shifted in his chair. "It would be easy to pull off," he acknowledged; "maybe not so easy to recover from."

"We want to make them feel more welcome, not less," Hazel told her knees, with a sideways disapproving look at Octavian.

He started, "There's already a division there—"

"We are not making the transfers into an enemy in a war, and that's final," Reyna said firmly. That was one battle they did not need to bring on themselves. Jason nodded in agreement.

Octavian sent them both a dark, shrewd look that made her gut twist with nausea. "Isn't it a little late for that?" he asked pointedly.

Jason's complexion turned a mottled purple, and Reyna's froze into impassive stone. "Are there any other suggestions for the AU?" she asked the other officers, her tone discouraging any further argument on that particular topic.

After the meeting ended, she asked Gwen, the secretary, to email her the notes for the discussion she'd missed, and then she pulled Jason aside, waiting until all the other officers had filed out the door before she opened her mouth.

"What time did you get up?" he asked, his lips twitching in a smile he wasn't suppressing very well.

"Just after nine!" she hissed between gritted teeth. "The power must have gone out; my alarm didn't go off. Why didn't you wake me up before you left?" It wasn't his fault she'd overslept, of course, but he knew how she felt about waking up early, and he ought to have at least made an attempt.

He held up his hands. "I knocked on your door a couple of times, but it was locked. I figured you were just sleeping in a little or getting dressed or something. My bad."

At that her jaw unclenched a bit. "Oh." The nightly locking of the door. That made sense. "Thanks for trying, then, I guess."

"Were you . . ." He lowered his voice and inclined his head toward her, inspecting her expression. Instinctively she shifted away and crossed her arms defensively. ". . .Was it a bad one?"

They had been friends for how long, now? Jason had been around for the childhood nightmares, the adolescent insomnia; she never brought it up, but they both knew he knew sleep wasn't often restful for her.

"It was . . ." She shook her head. "No, it wasn't that." The  _that_  she never put a name to. "I just overslept."

"Hmm." He sounded like he was probably giving her a Look, but she stared at his hairline to avoid making eye contact. Last night's dream had, granted, not been as bad as usual, but she still would have preferred not to dwell on it, which his Concerned Face would encourage her to do.

"Don't you have class at 9:30?" she prompted.

He rolled his shoulders lethargically.

"Go on then, and I'll see you at noon."

His hand went to his neck. "Hmm, yeah. Probably."

Reyna's chin tilted down, and she moved her stare from his hairline to his eyes, which were now avoiding hers. "Jason," she said disapprovingly.

"I might be a little late," he admitted, his gaze on the ceiling. "I mean, I don't have as much work to do this week so, you know, I don't want to just be sitting around doing nothing."

She scrutinized him for a moment before the realization hit her like the recoil on a gun. "You have lunch plans."

He winced. "Is that okay?"

She didn't have to ask whom the plans were with. "Sure, it's fine, as long as you get your work done," she brushed it off, trying to handle this maturely, even if she felt like stamping her foot and demanding quality time with her best friend. Their student government work did not constitute the entire boundary of their friendship.

"Awesome, thanks," Jason sighed in relief, beaming at her in a mix of happiness and embarrassment. "I will, I promise."

With a sigh she stepped aside and let him stroll out the door, and then she followed him out. She walked past the post office and turned left to get to her campus mailbox,  _R_  for  _Ramírez-Arellano,_  the surname she never acknowledged, leaving her in the far back wall with L-Z.

She found more than mail. Octavian had Hazel cornered by her mailbox, just out of sight of the registrar's office, of anyone passing by in the main hall. He wasn't a tall guy but she was short enough that he seemed to tower over her. Reyna stopped herself from intervening just for the moment—she couldn't make a battle plan for a situation she didn't fully understand.

"What was that in there?" he asked the freshman, the oil in his voice seasoned with poison.

"You were wrong." Hazel's voice shook and her knuckles were white, but she stood her ground.

"You're treading dangerous ground," he warned her. "If my status were as . . . precarious as yours—"

"I'm late for class," she snapped, but even from afar Reyna could see the fear in her eyes. The president stepped forward to put an end to whatever this was, but that was when Nico seemed to appear out of the shadows, sliding to Hazel's side and fixing Octavian with a death stare.

"Augur," he said in a clipped tone. The dark circles under his eyes, his bony, gaunt presence emanated danger, even if Reyna couldn't put a finger on why.

Apparently Octavian felt it too, because he faded away from Hazel, even if he met the stare without visibly flinching.

"Di Angelo," he replied. "Don't you have anywhere better to be?"

"No, but she does." Nico took Hazel by the arm and led her past Octavian, never breaking eye contact with the paler guy. The two cousins walked past Reyna and right out into the main floor and out the doors; and as Octavian watched them go, a sour expression on his face like he'd eaten moldy yogurt, he noticed Reyna's presence.

"Our illustrious president," he greeted her in a distinctly unfriendly tone, his mouth twisting over her title so that it was neither respectful nor complimentary.

Reyna wished she were more presentable, less rushed, less mussed; she could feel him taking in her mistake. "Leave Hazel alone. I will not have you harassing my officers."

He scrutinized her, snake eyes narrow and shrewd. "We aren't  _yours_. And you have no proof of harassment. We were just talking."

 _Just talking, my ass_ , she thought, but she said, "Be that as it may, I will not hesitate to remove you from your position if I receive complaints."

His eyes scrunched up, cold, but he didn't smile. "You would need Lupa's approval, and we both know she won't interfere unless it's her position in danger."

He was right, not that she would admit it. "Underestimating me is a dangerous mistake," she warned him. "You should probably leave now."

He stared her down, and she stared back, keeping her gaze hard and focused and unwavering. Nico might have a good death stare, but she had perfected her wolf stare, and it was Octavian who averted his eyes first.

"Have a good day," she said as he brushed past her, the stench of dirty hair making her want to wrinkle her nose. But she didn't move until after he had disappeared. She ducked to peek into her mailbox to check for mail and found the silhouettes of the edges of two envelopes leaning against the glass. She had just reached out to twist the lock (2 turns right to E, 2 right to C-B, 1 left to F) when she heard Annabeth's cheerful "Hey!"

"Morning," she replied, unlocking her box and pulling out the envelopes. One, labeled a receipt for her semester payment, she stuck in her bag unopened. The other had an inked-over stamp, so it had gone through regular postage rather than campus, but it bore no return address and she didn't recognize the handwriting that had written her name. She straightened to examine it.

"What's more important than me?" Annabeth teased. She leaned in close enough that her ponytail swung against Reyna's arm, and the latter girl handed over the envelope, her forehead tight with confusion.

"Thoughts?" Reyna asked with a gesture to the mystery envelope.

Annabeth turned it over in her hands, clicking her tongue as she analyzed. "You aren't expecting anything?"

"No."

"If it were a bill, it would have a company return address and possibly a themed marketing design. Plain envelope, handwritten address . . . Not family?"

That, she knew, was definitely not it. Her sister was busy running Amazon, and their parents? Their parents were long gone. "No," Reyna repeated.

"Huh," said Annabeth, holding the envelope up to the fluorescent ceiling lights. The challenge of figuring out the letter etched deeper into her expression. "Hate to say it, but I don't know. My best guess is an advertisement, some kind of marketing thing. Probably spam. Here." She handed it back, and Reyna stuck that in her bag as well, without so much as looking at it.

Annabeth eyed her. "You're not going to open it?"

Reyna shrugged. "I can look at it later." Meaning  _never_ , or as close to that as possible. With Annabeth's analysis still in her head, she had realized she might know who it was from, and if she was right, she planned to put it off as long as possible. "Besides, I need to pick up a coffee and get over to the library before my ten o'clock. The SG meeting put me behind schedule."

The blonde hiked her book bag higher up on her shoulder and looked her over with a teasing smirk. "You woke up late, didn't you?"  
Reyna shushed her, looking around to make sure no one had heard. "Is it really that obvious?"

"Probably not to anyone else. The jeans are a pretty big hint to anyone who knows you. But you're allowed to wake up late. It's not a crime."

The president gave her a look. "It's irresponsible."

"It's normal."

"When was the last time  _you_  overslept?"

Annabeth sucked in her cheeks as she thought. "I think I came late to my 8am class the second week of spring semester."

Reyna made a snorting laugh that came out something like  _pshhhh._  "Right. Thank you. I feel much better." She was pretty sure Central U was several times more laidback than Apollo U was, so the comparison was hardly fair, even if she did know Annabeth's personal standards to be pretty stringent.

Annabeth patted her on the arm. "The library will make you feel better. Or at least it'll make me feel better. Coffee first?"

"Coffee first," Reyna agreed, and they headed around the stairwell to see how long the line was at Nectar and Ambrosia. Not very, as it happened, probably because it was the middle of the class hour. As a guy in skinny jeans and a V-neck stepped away from the counter, she recognized the back of Piper's head behind the counter, choppy hair and feathered braids nodding to muffled music as she topped a smoothie with whipped cream. Reyna hadn't realized she'd tensed until she felt Annabeth's hand on her back, and she had to consciously relax herself. Breathe in, breathe out. Piper had never done anything to earn Reyna's hostility.

Piper set the smoothie on the side counter, called for a Michael, and then made eye contact with the pair. "Morning, hot stuff," she teased her roommate. "Morning, Reyna. Fancy meeting you two here."

Annabeth teased her in response, but Reyna didn't catch what she said, as she was glancing around suspiciously. Where Piper was, Leo was never far away. He didn't appear to be here, though, which made her nervous, given his propensity for mischief. He was like a short, ADHD puppy—she preferred him to be out in the open so she could keep an eye on him.

"Reyna, what do you want?" Annabeth asked over her shoulder.

The president took one more quick glance around the empty floor (better safe than sorry) and then stepped toward the counter. "Um, I'll take a tall mocha, extra chocolate, extra whipped cream," she said as she fished around in her purse for her wallet, but when she offered a five-dollar bill Piper waved it away.

"I got this one," said the barista with a smile, something in the curve of her mouth making Reyna think there was something behind it. A favor for a friend, or maybe for a friend of a (boy)friend, or both at the same time. Maybe something more.

"Thank you," she said, trying to keep the surprise out of her tone. Rudeness was unacceptable, especially in an officer of her rank. Slowly she slipped the bill back into her wallet and her wallet back into her purse, and as Piper scrawled her name on a cup she slid over to Annabeth.

"So I'm up this early because someone's paying me to be," Piper said, pouring milk into a small metal pitcher to be steamed. "Why are you both up? Class?"

"I have Architectural Theory at 11," Annabeth said. "But I wanted to work on the World Myth paper in the library first."

The milk steamer began to shriek, and Piper made a face, either at the ungodly noise or at the reminder of the massive research paper. "Gross. You?"

"I had a 9:00 student government meeting, and I have Business Comm at 10." Reyna stretched and clenched her toes inside her shoes.

Annabeth pulled out her iPhone to check her email, and Piper poured the shrieky steamed milk into the cup labeled with a spiky "favorite roommate." "Gross," she repeated with a laugh and a shake of her head. "I managed to avoid morning classes, and here they go putting me on the 9am shift? I'd rather close, any day of the week."

"I feel more productive in the morning," Reyna said, neglecting to mention that on this particular morning she'd failed to actually  _be_  that. "Early to bed and early to rise."

"Late to bed and late to rise," Piper grinned as she passed Annabeth her peach steamer. "That's my motto. Leo's too—I probably won't see him until lunchtime, unless he makes a sacrifice to come visit me."

Ah. So he really was absent. Reyna kept her expression neutral. She wanted to say something else so she wouldn't come across as rude, but she couldn't think of anything valuable to contribute to the conversation, so she remained silent, chin high and shoulders back. At attention, like a soldier. It occurred to her, standing here with the two peaceable girls—one a friend, one something like it—that perhaps the soldier mentality was not helping her in the "make friends and be pleasant" area in which she was currently so deficient.

With Annabeth tapping out an email, Reyna staring at the menu, and Piper bouncing on the balls of her feet, the renewed squeals of the steamer filled the conversational silence. Thinking of her government theory class, Reyna wondered absently what kind of delegation and power structure it took to keep the student-run coffee shop on its feet. Democracy, oligarchy, monarchy equivalents? Probably not anarchy or anarcho-syndicalism—

"Ready to go?" Annabeth prompted.

Reyna blinked out of her aimless thoughts and realized that Piper was holding out her mocha. She took it with a nod, pressing her lips together in an embarrassed, tight smile.

"Thanks, babe." Annabeth winked at Piper, pretending to salute her with her Yankees cap.

Piper winked back at her. "I gotcha covered, boo."

"See you in World Myth?"

"Sure thing. Have fun at the library."

"We will. Have fun working."

"I won't." Piper sent them a jaunty salute as they took their coffees and pressed out the double doors into the open air outdoors. And Reyna might have been mistaken, but she could have sworn she saw the barista pull a guy's wallet out from under the counter and rifle through it before the door closed behind them.

* * *

As predicted, the three girls did congregate again in World Mythology.

Late as usual, Mr. D straggled through the door at 2:14 (one minute before the accepted "the prof's not coming, everyone gets to go home" time, unfortunately) and instructed the class to break up in groups to discuss where they were on the research paper so far. Then he slumped into a chair behind the tech cart to "get some work done," and the conversation levels skyrocketed.

Reyna, whose coffee had worn off about half an hour prior, had expected the combined tomfoolery of Leo, Callie, and Dylan to set off her Tired Headache, but surprisingly, all three had chosen that day to skip class. Praise the Lord. Her skull remained in one piece, without a single stab of pain. She took the opportunity to start reading some of the academic journal articles she was hoping to incorporate to fill up her works cited page.

Piper perched on the table, her knees level with Jason's chest where he sat in his chair. "Has anyone seen Leo?" she asked the front row. "He's not picking up his phone, and he didn't come by to see me once at work, even after lunch." She kicked her heels up against the support bar and waited for concern or at least an answer, but none came.

Annabeth and Percy were bickering over what made an argument academically inappropriate and, as far as Reyna could tell, hadn't even heard the question.

Jason glanced around. "You're right, he's not here."

"No shit," she said, her teasing hardened with worry. Her tone was clear: had no one noticed he'd been gone all day? She redirected her attention: "Reyna. Aren't you in Spanish club with him? Did you see him then?"

Reyna calmly turned a page in the article she was marking up. "Spanish club is on Tuesdays. But yes, I did notice he wasn't loitering in the usual spots; I assumed he'd found something better to do."

"Does this mean you're acknowledging Leo's presence again?" Jason prompted, his eyebrows jumping and his eyes coming alight with hope.

Hope that she would summarily squash. "No, but at least the microwave finally smells normal again," she retorted, a small smile pulling at her lips.

"This is work time, not party time," groaned Mr. D as he popped a few ibuprofen into his mouth, and all five of them ducked their heads to get back to (pretending to) work on the paper.


	8. Connected

 

_Piper perched on the table, her knees level with Jason's chest where he sat in his chair. "Has anyone seen Leo?" she asked the front row. "He's not picking up his phone, and he didn't come by to see me once at work, even after lunch."_

* * *

The bright orange sun was just high enough to peek between the trees (and more importantly, glare right into Leo's face) when he pulled into the parking lot out back of Hephaestus Auto Repair. Festus was the only car there, as usual. Beckendorf and Nyssa would come later in the day, but until then, it would be Leo and a bunch of inorganic machines, and that was the way he liked it most of the time.

 _Not because I don't like people, necessarily_ , he considered as he unlocked the shop's back door _. I like Piper and Jason, and maybe Reyna if she stops hating me. Beckendorf's cool. And girls are pretty._  No, he liked people okay—people just tended not to be super fond of  _him_. Not his fault. "Everybody loves me," he sang under his breath as the door creaked open into total darkness, a sardonic smirk pulling at his mouth as he flicked on the overheard lights.

Nah, the real mutual  _amor_  came from the machines. All he had to do was fix a piston or connect two wires, and the car would run perfectly again, purring like Piper's old cat Nunny-something. But people? He couldn't fix people, and any attempt to figure out how they worked only left him even more confused. And when a person lost a part of themselves, you couldn't just order a new one. Some things couldn't be replaced.

His jaw clenching at the thought, he yanked on his tool belt and then plugged his iPod into the old CD player, blasting some Rolling Stones so that it echoed against the metal walls of the garage. Bouncing a little to the beat, he pulled a roll-y stool over to the Toyota Sienna that was sitting right where he'd left it the night before.

"Hello again, pretty lady," he grinned at it, feeling a little of the loneliness drain out of him. Maybe machines couldn't laugh at his jokes, but at least they never wrinkled their noses when he spoke to them.

Leo had almost finished rewiring the minivan's central circuitry when, past the reverberating rock music, he heard the sputter of an engine and then the clatter of heels on cement. A customer this early? (He glanced at his watch and realized it was almost 8:30. Not quite so early anymore, then.) But he was fully engaged in the wiring system, and if he let go right now, he would lose an hour's work, so he called over, "Have a seat, I'll be with you in five!" without taking his eyes off his fingers.

Once he had worked the wires back into their proper homes, he swiped his hands on his stained khakis and rolled over to see who it was. In the waiting chair by the desk he recognized Hera Grace, her chin just a little higher than sitting in a car shop merited, he thought.

He walked over, turning down the music as he passed. "Morning, Mrs. Grace. How's it going? How's your hubby?"

"He's busy," Hera said stiffly, and when she turned, her eyes bored into him. Ouch. "And I'm fine, thank you."

He leaned out to see where she'd parked her Malibu. Three rows back, the green hood peeked out from behind a Jeep. "What's the problem this time?" he asked.

She sighed in disapproval. "Some light won't turn off on my dash, and the engine makes a rough noise whenever I turn."

"Huh," he said, rubbing his hands together. The Graces—Jason's parents, he remembered in awe—would have easily won the Most Obscure Malfunctions award, if Leo gave one out. He didn't, but they were def still his favorite customers. Half the time the symptoms didn't even match the root malfunction. The problems were way more fun to figure out and fix than the normal "change my tire," "change my oil," blah blah boring stuff that he'd been doing since he was eight. He'd even named their cars—Hera's green Malibu was Peacock, and Jove's blue and silver sports cars were Masterbolt and Maximus. Sometimes he wondered if they intentionally messed up their cars so Hera would have something to do. Every time she came, she acted like she was waiting for him to do something amazing. Or mess up and kill himself. Either way.

"When do you think they'll be done?" she asked, wrinkling her nose like she was hoping sooner rather than later.

"I'm not sure. If it's a major problem I can take a look now, try to have it back to you by the end of the day."

"Do," she said, her back too straight.  _What's she think she is, the queen of the gods?_  he joked to himself. Reyna was intimidating; Hera just seemed somewhere between bored and dangerous. Like maybe she could cause real trouble, but in the meantime all she could do was drop animal  _mierda_  in your path. She handed him the keys to Peacock the Malibu, and a few minutes later, Jove picked her up in Maximus the silver Mazda MX-5.

Since Leo had finished with the Sienna, he went ahead and parked it back out in the front lot, called the owner as a heads-up she could come get it, and went to check out Peacock. Sadly, the dash lights were just the Overdrive Off and the Master Warning Light for an oil change, both of which were boringly easy to fix. Turning the overdrive back on took care of the weird noises, too, so he parked and left the Graces a message to come get the Malibu.

He was in the middle of replacing a tire on one of the Augurs' cars when, over the chorus of "Gimme Shelter," he heard the telephone ring.

"Somebody get that," he hollered, not deviating from his work, before he realized that he was the only somebody around and the answering machine was fickler than cafeteria desserts. With a grumble he propped the tire/car up, stretched onto his feet, and trotted over to pick up the jangling phone.

"Hephaestus Auto Repair, this is Leo," he said in one breath, eyeing the Augur car like it might grow legs and walk away. Or, you know, fall off its supports and cost him a bazillion dollars in damage. Whichever came first.

"What hours are you here today?" asked a tentative female voice, high-pitched and almost wispy. She sounded vaguely familiar, but he didn't put much thought into it.

He glanced at the daily schedule duct-taped to the wall at his shoulder. "Uh, we're open eight to five."

"And you'll be there the whole time?" she pressed.

"Uh, yeah, that's what being open means," he joked, before it occurred to him that she seemed to be emphasizing the  _you_. "Wait, me in particular?"

The girl on the other end made an indistinguishable squeaking noise.

He guessed that that meant yes. "Yeah, I'll be here."

"Don't you have classes?"

"Eh." He shrugged.

She made a slightly lower-pitched squeaky noise and blurted "okaythanksbye" before hanging up.

The phone started to beep before he grasped whatever had just happened. "Bye?" he said belatedly, staring at the receiver in his hand. He set it back in the cradle and headed back for the Audi. Girls, man.

The Augur Audi was a pretty quick fix, though—just a basic tire change, not even an engine issue to mix things up—and Leo parked it back out in the lot satisfied but bored with the repair. He glanced longingly at the tail end of his Camaro peeking around the back—"No, bad," he said out loud to himself, forcing himself to take out the keys for the F-150 that was next on his to-fix list. The other mechanics had told him in no uncertain terms that he was not to work on his own car during company time if there were customer cars still waiting for repairs.

He pulled the truck into the garage, parked, and read over the form. Geez. He didn't know who Katie Gardner was, but she was clearly not a mechanical person. "Squeaking noises in the front bits." Holy hand grenades. Well, at least figuring out the problem would be interesting. He pulled out a pair of hand-me-down science-geek goggles over his eyes, just in case, and propped up the hood.

* * *

The incredibly buff and talented Beckendorf came in around one, and though he threw up a wave at Leo as he walked into the shop, he went right over to the clocky-inny place—a computerized time card wired into the wall—and then disappeared underneath his girlfriend's jacked-up Bug.

Leo was knee-deep in F-150 engine when he heard the girl's voice from the weird phone call: "Hello?" Beckendorf, pretty much as a rule, didn't deal with customers if he was actively working on a car, so Leo had to strain his neck to see who she was.

Rocking on her heels in the doorway, caramel hair wispy in the breeze, stood Calypso Islet.

Leo accidentally banged his elbow on the aluminum cylinder head. Suddenly he wished he had enough status in the shop to say he didn't deal with customers either, and sorry not sorry better come back later and talk to Nyssa or something.

But he was just a repair boy, and whether he liked it or not, that put him first in line to go talk to the girl he'd been avoiding since their plans fell through so spectacularly a week ago. Pushing away from the truck, he let the stool roll for a few seconds before he tripped to his feet.

Running his grease-stained hands through his hair, Leo approached Callie, trying to keep his chin high like Jason and Reyna did so well. 'Course, they had probably never been stood up—at least, not more than once. He would have bet good money that Reyna would disembowel anyone who did. Maybe that was why people gave her goddess-like president self such a wide berth.

Anyway. The situation at hand. Damn ADHD.

Callie wrung her hands from her place in the sun, the light glimmering prettily on her. She didn't move to approach Leo, but she didn't run away either; he wasn't sure whether that was good or bad.

Time to start the conversation off right. Make it clear he was in control and way too cool to be offended about what had happened.

"Shouldn't you be in class?" he blurted.

 _Good job, hot stuff,_ he thought sarcastically.

She blushed a little, but she stood her ground. "Shouldn't you?" she countered. "Mr. D gives two skips, I'll be fine."

He grumbled. "Yeah, okay. Whatever." He didn't really care about the attendance sheet—she could skip or not skip. The real problem, the proverbial semi in the garage, was the fact that he had promised to come for lunch with her, and he had come, and he had waited, and she hadn't been there. She had already moved on, totally forgotten about him, as far as he could tell. Had she ever been honestly interested in him at all?

As uncomfortable silence settled between them, Callie began to study her shoes, the hem of her shirt. Leo glanced at the clock. 2:15. Piper, Jason, and Reyna would be in World Myth right now. He wondered, bitter and falsely nonchalant, if any of them would even notice his absence.

"So do you have a car you need fixed, or what?" he asked, in need of a distraction. "I need to get back to work."

She made a humming noise, just barely audible over the cruelly ironic iPod playing  _you can't always get what you want._

"I have no idea what that means."

"Sorry." She began to twist her hair over her shoulder, finally looking up at him. "I came to say I'm sorry about last week."

His eyebrows jumped to his hairline. "Really?" he asked, embarrassed to hear his voice crack. What was he, 12?

"Yeah. That was lame of me," she admitted. "Mean, even. I shouldn't have handled it the way I did since I still liked Odysseus. And Percy and Jason."

'Kay, that was a little more information than he wanted. Odysseus being the football player she'd stood him up for, and Percy and Jason being Percy and Jason. Light years away from Leo Valdez, repair boy.

"I just wanted you to know I'm sorry," she repeated.

All Leo could manage was a confuddled "Oh." Times like this—not that they came around all that often—it might be nice to know how to handle people better than cars. Cars didn't apologize (granted, they didn't stand him up either). Quickly he ran over the possible fixes: flirt, make a joke, run away, shut up and hope someone else took care of it. Tried and true methods of avoiding a problem without ever actually taking care of it. But somehow none of them felt right this time.

"Thanks?" he offered, jamming his hands in his pockets.

Callie looked back down at her feet.

If this was supposed to be a touching, meaningful conversation, Leo wasn't feeling it. When Piper and Jason had had their "special talk" (aka the DTR), yeah, it had been kinda awkward, but sort of positively so. Like, they knew it was going somewhere good. But this? This was  _just_  awkward. No kiss, no future of dating. And—this thought came like the shock of a finger on a starter solenoid—he wasn't even completely sure he wanted that anymore. Callie was pretty, and he liked her, or at least he had for a little while. But for the first time in forever, something in him felt uneasy about the idea of being in a relationship. Maybe it was this girl in particular, maybe it was the situation disillusioning him; either way, some wires had connected in his brain, or stopped a cog somewhere, just long enough for him to focus on the fact that having a girlfriend just to have a girlfriend wouldn't fix him, wouldn't even duct-tape up all the doors he liked to run out of.

He glanced up at Callie, who was still inspecting the concrete. He thought of her looking to every guy that came her way, hoping that maybe one would stick around longer than a day or two. She'd looked at him the same way from the first day of class, like some part of her knew they were cursed, doomed, but wanting to try anyway. And while the hurt in his gut remained, he wasn't really angry anymore. In the end, she wasn't a villain (even though it would be so easy to make her into one). She was just another victim. Instead of feeling bad for himself, for the first time, he felt bad for someone else. He felt bad for her.

"It's okay," he said, screwing up a rueful smile. "Some things, man."

"I'd still like to see around the shop sometime," she said, "if that'd be okay. It does seem super interesting."

"Sometime," Leo agreed vaguely.

They stood there staring at the rafters for a minute before Callie said, "Well, I guess I'll see you around," and backed out to her idling Subaru. Got in. Drove away. Her caramel hair whipped out the rolled-down driver's side window as Leo watched her go, feeling like he should have been feeling more than he was.

A shadow fell over him, a literal shadow, and he jumped when he saw Beckendorf, buff as a wrestler and twice as intimidating, looming behind him. When had he come over?

"You okay?" the older guy asked. He clapped Leo on the back, the force of his hand (which was easily as big as a garbage can lid) almost knocking the wind out of him.

Leo shrugged with a wince. "Yeah, I'm fine." He was still mentally reeling from the fact that he meant it.

"Hope so." Then Beckendorf fixed him with a hard look. "Hope she is too. She's a pretty good kid." He crossed his dark arms. "Basically grew up alone, just 'cause her dad is an ass. Hard thing to watch."

Leo's first instinct was to defend his innocence, but he let this information sink in as they both went back to work. The iPod faded out of the last repetition of the Rolling Stones chorus: _You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you just might find you get what you need._


	9. Expectations

"Want to go hiking?" Piper sat backwards on one of the rolling chairs in the student gov office, her chin resting on its cushioned back, her back arched in a slouch, her legs resting across Jason's knees as he bent over the forms on his desk. It was 60 degrees out, and as grateful as she was for air conditioning, she wanted to go outside. Plus she was hungry but she had no food, and she needed a distraction. What time was it even? The clock was permanently stopped on 11:35, which was totally unhelpful.

Unfortunately, her stupidly hardworking VP was having none of it. "I really have to get this done," he apologized, flipping to the next page of whatever-it-was. "Are you sure you don't have something more interesting you want to do until I'm free?"

She sighed, loud and dramatic, and hung her head back to inspect the ceiling. The painted white wood looked too smooth; ceilings were supposed to have grit and swirls to collect dust and crumble down on your head when you ran your hand over them. The weird, layered diamond-shaped vent blew cool air into her eyes, making them sting. She blinked a few times and looked back to Jason.

"Want to get ice cream?" she suggested, the words coinciding with a particularly loud grumble for her stomach.

Jason groaned, the sound vibrating low in his throat in a way that made her look back up at the ceiling before she could imagine, in vivid detail, other scenarios in which he might make similar noises. "You're not going to give up, are you?" he asked, and when she glanced back at him, he was giving her an abashed grin.

"Not anytime soon, no," she said promptly.

He swore in lighthearted Latin, the only language she'd heard him let himself swear in, at least around other people. "I do like ice cream," he mused.

"I know," she said before it connected in her head that that sounded kind of creepy (even if they  _were_  dating), and she mussed her hair and smoothed her fingers through her neck like that would cool down the heat rising bright and hot in her face. Now she  _really_  wanted to get outside, if only because she could blame the blush on walking.

Thank God, Jason started stacking up his forms. "We'll be quick," he said, but that was more ritual than actual promise—it had been a while since they'd parted ways less than two hours into a date. She was a bad influence. Not that she regretted it much. "And I can always come in early tomorrow." One of his eyebrows ticked mischievously, and he beamed at her, and an instinctive grin spread over her face as well, without her even having to try, to think about it. It was so  _easy,_  being with Jason. Even with her idiot inability to flirt without being dumb.

Piper pulled her legs off his lap and dismounted off the chair to a standing position, picking up her jacket and hanging it over her arm. "Ready, then?"

He shrugged on his Letterman and nodded at her, the smile still creasing his eyes and stretching the scar on his lip. "Ready," he said.

He held the door open for her and they left the office, rounding the corner and navigating through the scattered clusters of people before pushing through glass double-doors to step into sunshine, warm on Piper's hair and skin and clothes, perfect fall weather. Too cool for summer, too hot for winter.  _Simultaneously too cool and too hot, just like me_ , she thought, and the strength of the sarcasm made her snort.

Jason glanced her way curiously, but she couldn't admit her fake self-compliment. "Do you like work?" she asked to divert his attention.

He rolled his shoulders and gave a little smile. "Yeah, it's all right," he said. "I mean, I'm making a difference, helping people out, so that's good. But…" He trailed off and looked up at the thin cirrus clouds passing overhead.

It was unlike him, being evasive and pensive. At least, since the topic wasn't their finding each other attractive. What was on his mind? Her eyebrows crunched together, but she screwed up an encouraging smile. Lightly she bumped her fist on his ribcage and hooked her left arm through his right one. "But what?"

Shrugging again, he tucked his chin over her head for a second. "It's always been more Reyna's thing than mine. And with my dad—everyone just expects something from me, you know?"

Ah. Piper knew that feeling, knew it all too well—seeing people's eyes on you and seeing expectations there. People looked at her father like that, and on the few occasions she'd admitted the relationship, they had looked at her like that too. Even Leo, although his awe was pretty quickly replaced with even more determination to convert her to evil. She still hadn't told Jason because she had a very clear mental video of how that conversation would go:

_She tells him and Jason's face creases with pain, the hurt aging him years older. She reaches out to touch his arm, apologetic, and he pulls away. "You lying, deceitful wench," he whispers with a shudder. "What else have you kept from me?"_

_Might as well air all the dirty laundry at once. "I'm also a high-quality klepto," she admits. "I'm so sorry."_

_Pain and disgust war in his eyes. He backs up, and finally he turns away. "I'm sorry too," he says. And he leaves. At least he doesn't see the tears stinging her eyes._

All right, maybe the scenario was a little melodramatic. The "lying, deceitful wench" bit always made her smirk a little, which lessened the sick twisty feeling in her gut when she thought about his being hurt by her lying, even if it was only by omission.

"Just Nina's is fine?" Jason asked her.

She shook herself.  _Focus, girl, focus_. The little family-run place right across the street from campus. Prices weren't bad, and the food was delicious. They even had vegetarian options. "Yeah, Nina's is great."

"Cool, cool." They sidestepped a slow freshman toting an armful of textbooks and diverged onto a smaller sidewalk that took them right up to the main road. "So are we going to—whoa, fire!" Jason's jaw dropped.

Piper followed his gaze across the street, where a line of red-orange flames was licking up the edge of a field, heavy grey smoke stretching like a cat just above the line of apartment roofs. Her stomach dropped, and anxiety gripped her by the throat. Had Leo . . .? No, he couldn't have, he had work right after his classes today. But he was always playing with that stupid lighter, and it was all too easy to imagine a vivid scenario in which his thoughtless joking around made the flame get out of hand.

"We have to see anyone's over there!" he said, and he tugged her along with him as he darted across the empty road. Thankfully they didn't run into the fire but rather around it, Jason taking advantage of his height to peer above and into the fire for any sign of people.

It was Piper who saw the firefighters standing around the corner. "Over there!" she pointed, and they ran towards the professionals. She looked for any sign of her wayward best friend but didn't see him. Had he not been involved? Had he gotten away? Had they  _taken_  him away?

She was plenty out of breath by the time they reached the firefighters, but Jason's sportsy athletic god-perfect fitness ( _which we are not thinking about right now,_ she told herself sternly, because this was not the time) left him perfectly fine. She planted her hands on her hips, breathing out through her mouth to get the wind back in her lungs, wishing to God she went to the gym more often. "What happened? Is everything okay?" the VP asked them, his voice deep with earnest concern.

Piper's stomach twisted with worry, but the closest firefighter waved their concerns off. "Don't worry," she reassured the two students. "It's intentional and controlled. Everything's fine."

Jason sighed in relief and thanked the older woman, who went back to her work dragging the huge grey hose to her coworkers. Piper sighed too, not so much from the relief that it wasn't a wildfire raging out of control (though she supposed that  _was_  a good thing) as from the relief that it was the fire department's doing. She and her heroic male counterpart turned and began the trek over to Nina's.

It did seem kind of weird, though. "Is that a normal thing here?" she asked him. He was a townie; he would know.

He shrugged. "Every so often, yeah. I think it's to clear the dead grass, in case there's lightning or anything. Safety precaution."

"Ah."

Looking back to their path, Piper saw Leo before she heard him, a stark difference from the usual order. He stood in the gas station parking lot with his back to her and Jason, facing Frank and Hazel and talking animatedly with them. But—even though she would recognize him any day, even from the back—she wondered if she was mistaken, because both the freshmen looked comfortable with his company.

Jason had noticed this as well. "Is that… Leo?"

"Yeah," she said, almost as a question. "Let's go say hi." Translation:  _let's go see what alien has taken over his body._

When they approached, Piper announced her presence by threading her fingers through some of Leo's tight, wild curls and tugging lightly. "Ayyy, bro," she teased as she looked him over for wounds or stiffness or any signs of body swappage.

"Oh, hey, beauty queen!" he said brightly. "How was work after I left?"

"Fine. What're you guys doing here?"

It was Frank who answered. "Hazel needed some groceries but didn't have time for a Walmart run," he explained, holding up the plastic bags he was carrying. (It didn't escape Piper's notice that Hazel blushed and looked away at the unintentional muscle flexing.) "I offered to come here with her to save her some time."

Frank and Hazel getting in quality time was normal. What wasn't normal was their being okay with Leo's presence. Piper debated whether to ask the logical follow-up question:  _And you invited_  this  _guy?_  As much as she loved her best friend, she was well aware that he wasn't Frank's favorite person. In fact, Leo probably wasn't even in the top half of the list.

But the freshmen seemed to be able to read her mind, and though they looked embarrassed to understand why she was incredulous, they actually offered a defense. "Leo was already here and offered us a ride," Frank said, eyebrows high like he still wasn't totally sure this was real life.

A week ago, Leo would have grinned at his clever opportunity to flirt with Hazel and tease Frank. Now he only shrugged and looked away, a smile casting the faint shadow of dimples on his cheeks. Hazel looked far too comfortable to have been flirted with recently, and Frank wasn't nearly as soldier-straight as he usually was around Leo. For all appearances, they were just three friends who'd run into each other.

Piper stared.

Was she missing a punch-line? She made a mental note to grill Leo about it later—yet she did remember the friendly but distinctly less flirty way he'd been talking with Callie and Silena in World Myth yesterday. Huh. An eighth wonder of the world.

"Well, Frank and I have a study date before swing dancing tonight, so we have to be going," Hazel said with a smile. "It was good to see you two, though." She threaded her hand through her boyfriend's arm, and with in-sync waves, they headed for Leo's car, Festus, which was parked a few yards away. Leo dug into his pocket for the key and trotted off after them. Piper heard him ask if he should drop them at the student center or at their dorm, and then the car doors closed and the engine revved. The three drove off, and Piper and Jason continued toward Nina's.

The tiny building felt even smaller on the inside than it looked on the outside, since most of the floor space was for the workers to make food behind the counter. Knickknacks and old newspaper clippings covered the wall as completely as wallpaper. Three small booths jutted out under the windows, but most students who came here ate at the tables outside or took the food back to the dorms, so the place sat empty. As the walkway was just big enough for two, Piper stood close enough to Jason that their arms grazed each other. Feeling a lot less controlled than the firefighters' fire, she pretended not to notice the flame of nerves dancing up her stomach.

There was no worker to be seen. "Have you been here before?" Jason asked her offhandedly.

Piper coughed. "Yeah, Leo and I got milkshakes here a couple weeks ago."

The worker on duty apparently heard their voices, and a heavyset woman with a neat grey bun strolled out from the hidden back area. Her eyes scrunched up with a smile as she asked, "How're you kids today?"

"We're great," Jason said, with so much enthusiasm Piper would have thought he'd won the lottery. "How are you?"

"Well, I'm good, thank you." She shook herself like a fluffy mother bird, seeming pleased that he'd asked. "What can I get you today?"

Piper scrunched up her hair until she could feel the tufts and braids sticking out at odd angles. "Mmmm, a medium chocolate shake, thanks." Her stomach was rumbling something awful, so she knew she could have gotten a large, but she didn't want to seem greedy, and besides, surely there was a healthier alternative for dinner food later. The cashier's eyes moved to Jason, who was still craning his neck to look over the menu.

"I'll have a large strawberry milkshake," he said finally, glancing at Piper with an embarrassed smile. Before she could question his embarrassment, he explained, "I probably shouldn't, but I'll hit the gym afterward to make up for it."

She laughed a little and patted his arm. She could feel the hard curve of his muscles even under his jacket. "I think you're okay," she told him, her hand lingering.

He turned a little pink, mumbled something incoherent, and turned back to the cashier lady, pulling his wallet out of his back pocket.

"You kids sure you don't want anything more substantial?" the older woman asked. "It's just about dinnertime, after all."

Piper's and Jason's eyebrows jumped in unison. She brushed it off. "What? Nah."

But he looked around for a clock and found one on the wall by the flurry machine. "5:10?" he cried. "When did that happen?"

" _Told_  you you were working late," she teased him, but to be honest it made her feel a little better: at least her stomach hadn't been obnoxious just for a midafternoon snack.

"I'm sorry," he said earnestly. "Do you want anything else, then?"

"You know me." She bounced on the balls of her feet and looked back to the menu, this time evaluating the meal-y food options. "Hmm . . . you want to split some cheesy fries?"

Jason reverently set one of his hands on her shoulder. "I think I'm in love with you," he said solemnly.

That, understandably, reduced her to a bright hot flush and incoherent stammering attempts to tease her way out of it, which made  _him_  an embarrassed stammering mess as well. Then she caught the cashier covering a squishy  _aren't they so cute_  smile, and the pair shifted a little to get back on track.

"Um, I'll have a veggie burger and a large—no, extra-large—cheesy fries," Piper told the countertop. "Jason?"

"Yeah, double cheeseburger for me, please," he said to the ceiling.

The cashier muttered something that sounded like "cuties" as she tapped the full order into the cash register. Piper avoided eye contact with Jason, even though she could feel him sneaking looks at her. He had been joking. He had to have been joking. They joked, that was a thing they did, when they weren't being awkward "cuties."

But hearing those particular words out of his particular mouth?

It made her want to stuff the entire plate of cheesy fries into her face. And she wasn't sure if that was good or bad.

"It'll be $12.40," the cashier said as Jason handed over his plastic. She swiped it and handed it back with the receipt.

"Thank you," he said with a bright smile.

Balancing their food on their arms, Piper and Jason backed out the door and carefully settled down at the little two-person table out back, just out of sight of the parking lot and the street. She wriggled her butt just a little to get into exactly the right angle—so that the sunlight fell warm on her face and arms and glittered on the gold highlights in Jason's hair but that the bright source of the light itself was blocked by the gutter on the roof. Pleased with this arrangement, she began to peel the wrapper off her straw.

"Do you work tonight?" Jason asked before inhaling several cheesy fries.

Piper suppressed a smile. "No, I'm free. I worked this morning. I'm on the schedule for tomorrow night, though, if you feel the urge to douse yourself in espresso." Sucking chocolate shake up her straw, she nudged his foot with her own. "Just make sure you make a reservation—I'm a hot commodity, you know."

Jason laughed. "To think I almost made the biggest mistake of my life! Who do I have to call?"

"You can write me a note, but it might be better to text me. I might lose the paper."

He pretended to be wounded. " _Lose_  it?"

She shrugged, a teasing smirk on her face. "Yeah, you'd think after twenty years I'd have figured out how to keep track of all my suitors." She bit into the veggie burger and was pleasantly surprised. Normally restaurants butchered vegetarian options, but this was really good.

Then she felt his foot pushing on hers, and she had to struggle to swallow while she pressed her lips together against another stupidly pleased smile. Why was he so good at  _being_? She liked to tease him to get a rise out of him, but he could get her insides in a twist without even trying. And he wasn't looking for anything; he just liked her for her, which still blew her mind. "I don't think I could ever lose your reservation," she mused, and it was only when a smile spread across his face that she realized she'd spoken out loud.

But guilt marred the tingling happiness curling her toes and warming her stomach. She wasn't being completely honest with him, and she knew it.

The sides of their feet came to rest against each other, and Piper averted her gaze to her burger. Jason tossed a few fries into his mouth and drank some of his milkshake, exhaling contentedly.

"My dad's an actor," she muttered to her sandwich.

She didn't look up, but she could feel his eyes on her. "What?" he asked.

"Tristan McLean," she said, a little louder this time. "The actor Tristan McLean is my dad." She held her breath and waited for it. Usually girls were more shrieky, but guys still thought he was way cool, and she'd stopped telling people about her dad because every time she did, she went from being Piper the person to being Piper the daughter of Tristan McLean, Piper the fountain of information about Tristan McLean, Piper the  _nothing_. And as soon as Jason asked for her dad's autograph, she'd get up and go, because she didn't think she could take it from him.

Finally she dared to look up at him, though her choppy hair created a semitransparent curtain to shield her.

"Thanks for telling me," Jason said, earnest and sweet. She wondered if he was remembering her  _we don't talk about our parents_  warning when they went out for dinner that one time. But there was no gleam of awe or even recognition in his eyes at her dad's name. In fact, if she was being honest, he looked a little blank. "Um, I've never been good with actor names. My stepmom never let Thalia or me watch movies very much, and I found other ways to stay busy."

He didn't know who her dad was? "Really?" she blurted.

He shifted in his seat. "Yeah. I'm sorry."

"Don't be," she said, and she rose out of her seat to kiss him full and hard on the mouth, all too happy to curl her fingers around the back of his neck and breathe in the clean smell of the one person on the university campus who didn't care that her dad was a movie star.


	10. Human

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Caution: This chapter includes strong Spanish expletives that the young, conservative, or clean-tongued may not want to put through a translator.

 

"Thanks for driving," Reyna said, sliding into the passenger seat of Annabeth's Geo. The blonde nodded happily, and as soon as Reyna shut the door and buckled her seat belt, they pulled around the student center parking lot and out onto the main road. They would have sped up, tires squealing, but the car wasn't really capable of that. The old thing went from 0 to 60 in about a full minute. Reyna would have been more than happy to drive herself in her Mustang, but she hadn't gotten around to making the appointment for it yet, and she didn't quite trust it for any trip longer than the distance from the apartment to campus and back.

"Is it okay if we pick up Piper, too?" Annabeth asked. Her tone was friendly, but her eyes flicked to Reyna's, careful, evaluating, analyzing. Annabeth had never outright said so, but Reyna suspected she knew about her love for Jason. Honestly, the girl was too smart  _not_  to have figured it out; she just had the sense not to make a scene about it. One of the many reasons Reyna liked her.

"Yes," Reyna said evenly, "that's fine. Is she here or at home?"

"Home, but don't worry, it's not far out of the way." Annabeth eased to a stop at a red light. "How were your classes today?"

Reyna looked out the window and sighed, squeezing one hand along her tense right shoulder. "Classes were all right—I just wish we could move on from theory and get to the practical application. And the World Myth paper is my least favorite thing to think about, so I've hardly worked on it since the first few times I joined Jason, Piper, and Leo's work sessions."

"Yeah, it's not as high on my priority list as it should be, either." The light turned green, so Annabeth turned onto the long country road that would lead to the hobbit house, as she affectionately called it. "But we still have, what, a month and a half? We'll be okay. How was work?"

"Still trying to get AU week put together," Reyna grimaced. "Octavian is . . ." She cut herself off, feeling guilty on a number of levels. It wasn't like it was state secrets, but student gov was student gov. Though she trusted Annabeth, she didn't want to badmouth Octavian anywhere it might get back to him or his father. And she ought not to complain about her job at all; it was just that work had been a little lonely without Jason, who had an off-campus football game today and so had left shortly before lunch.

She turned the questions back at the blonde. Annabeth was describing, in equal parts annoyance and fondness, her date with Percy in which the skateboarder had mouthed off to a campus safety officer. "And then the officer said, 'If you're so opposed to it, then you can—' Oh, here we are." They turned into the driveway, and Annabeth honked the horn, which would have been rude had the noise not been a submissive, high-pitched  _meep meep_  ( _a far cry,_  Reyna thought,  _from Annabeth's take-charge personality_ ). A few seconds later, Piper burst through the front door, hopping to pull on her second boot, her thin braids swinging every which way, and fell into the backseat.

"Hey, babe," she said to Annabeth, kneeing the back of the driver's seat as she finished zipping up her boot. "Hi, Reyna."

"Good afternoon," Reyna replied, sitting up a little straighter. She knew she needed to make a better effort to get along with Jason's girlfriend; this trip would be a good chance to try. "How are you?"

"I'm fine. How are you?"

"Fine, thanks."

Reyna could all but touch the stiffness of the trivial exchange. Annabeth shifted in her seat and turned the volume dial so that Fall Out Boy pumped out of the speakers. "How much do you guys have to get?" the blonde asked—a nice neutral.

Reyna pulled an index card out of her purse pocket, unfolded it, and scanned the neat cursive list. "Milk, bread, clementines, shampoo, trash bags, paper towels, peanut butter. Cereal if any's on sale. Nothing out of the ordinary."

Piper put her feet up on the center console; Reyna couldn't decide whether she envied or resented the other girl's level of comfort. She herself wouldn't dare to put her feet up anywhere if there were other people around, even at home in the apartment. The expectations were everywhere, and nowhere was really safe. Hence the locks on her bedroom door.

"I'm gonna look at the vegetables section and see if anything looks edible," Piper was saying, squinting at the fuzzy gray ceiling to remember her own list. "And I have a coupon for curry powder, so I'm pro'lly gonna get that too."

"Oh, did your paycheck come in?" Annabeth asked offhandedly.

"Um—yeah," Piper hastened to stay, her gaze going out the window. Reyna, reminded of the time she'd seen her rifling through a guy's wallet at work, shifted in her seat to appraise the Cherokee girl. There was something she was hiding; Reyna just hadn't figured out what yet.

* * *

_Like many things_ , Reyna decided an hour later,  _Walmart trips are best done alone_. Not that she begrudged the other girls their fun—but Annabeth and Piper, more like sisters than roommates, had attached at the hip upon leaving the car and were now teasing and joking with each other through each aisle, which both slowed them down and left Reyna to trail behind them as the dreaded third wheel. Amazing how she managed to find that role in so many situations.

But the real problem was their speed, or their lack of it. The cart did fill up, but slowly, and Reyna knew for a fact she could have been out of there in 15 minutes if she had gone alone. Maybe 20 had she gone only with Annabeth.

 _You signed up for this, and socializing is a good thing_ , she reminded herself, and she put a box of white drawstring trash bags in her third of the cart. "Is that everything now?" she called ahead to the roommates bickering over Cap'n Crunch versus Raisin Bran.

They sighed in unison. "Yes," Annabeth said with a pointed look at her roommate, who grinned cheekily and dropped her box of Cap'n Crunch into the cart. "No!"

"Fine, fine," Piper gave in, and she picked it up and set it back on the shelf; "but you owe me." Annabeth was replying with equal snark when Piper's phone buzzed. She pulled it out, tapped in the password, and then scanned whatever had appeared on the screen, the white glow barely reflecting on her due to the bright fluorescent store lights.

"Leo's here!" she said in surprise.

"Really?" Annabeth and Reyna said, in unison but in very different tones.

Piper began to tap out a reply. "Yeah, he said he's at Walmart, wants to know if I need anything." ( _Strangely thoughtful_ , Reyna thought but didn't say.) "I'm asking where he is so we can meet—say hi and make sure we aren't doubling up groceries."

"Okay." Annabeth set her box of Raisin Bran in the cart. "Where should we wait for him?"

"Do you mind if I go ahead and check out?" Reyna asked. "I hate to waste time, and I know for sure I have everything on my list." They said that was fine, so she piled her groceries into her arms, slung her purse over her shoulder, and made her way up to the front of the store, glancing furtively down aisles and across counters to make sure she didn't recognize, ahem, Anyone.

Luckily, all faces looked unfamiliar, so she quickly set her items in neat rows beside the corner self-checkout and pressed "Begin" on the screen. The irritating female voice instructed her to "scan the items and then place them in the bagging area," so she hefted up the first gallon of milk, tilted it onto its side, and at the beep of the scanner set it into the plastic bag hanging half-open.

Trying to tune out the annoying automated speech, she went on to the second gallon of milk and then the clementines—at which point she realized that not only had the self-checkout not registered the second gallon, but it was now rejecting the clementines.

"Place your items in the bagging area," said the sweet checkout.

Reyna flicked both gallons as if to make sure she wasn't hallucinating them. "I did," she commanded in an undertone.

"Place the items in the bagging area."

Gritting her teeth, she set down the clementines.

"Remove the items from the bagging area," said the checkout.

"You damn—!" she hissed, picking it back up and setting it aside. A mother with two toddlers glanced her way suspiciously, and though anger gripped Reyna's stomach she didn't want to corrupt children. So, spitting the words out between her lips like seeds: " _Carajo, estupido jueputa. No seas pendejo._ "

"Remove the items from the bagging area."

There was now nothing in the bagging area besides the milk that was accepted. Carefully Reyna tried again, this time scanning the loaf of wheat bread. "Come on,  _capullo. Dame la puta comida."_

"Remove the items from the bagging area."

" _¡Malnacido!"_ she burst out, her voice raising to a normal speaking pitch. _"¡Chinga tu madre!"_

" _¿Quién te cabrea?"_  asked a male voice that was definitely not the checkout machine.

Reyna spun on her heel, her braid hitting her hard in the spine when she stopped at the sight of Leo Valdez looking much too pleased to have found her in such a situation.

* * *

Leo received a text from Piper:  _in the cereal aisle w/ AB + reyna, come here_. She was here? He knew he should have texted her before he left; she might have liked a ride. Annabeth's Geo was shit—unless they were driving Katoptris, in which case  _he_  would have liked a ride. Who didn't love to bask in the glorious fruits of their labors? Plus, driving required a lot of attention, even with a car as awesome as Festus.

Anyway, if Piper was here, he needed to see her (it was a Best Friend Duty), so he set his beautiful new tire jack in his cart and began to bounce down the main stretch, the cart wheels rattling on the tile floor. "Doo doo de doo," he sang to himself under his breath, offkey but pleased. " _'Miga, 'miga, major amiga_ …"

Then, as if someone were answering him, he heard faint Spanish coming from the self-checkout section. His head perked up, and he leaned over the cart handle to hear better. Apollo U and the surrounding towns were basically all a bunch of white people, so if he could talk with someone  _en su lengua materna_ , in his native language, especially outside of Spanish club, he would for sure take the chance.

Leo let his cart slide to a stop and trotted toward the self-checkouts. There were two white girls at one machine and a white guy at another, but between them he caught sight of a familiar braid on a girl with a Latino complexion close to his own.

Reyna went to Walmart?

And since in Spanish club she only ever did homework, he had assumed she just needed a language credit and didn't know it well herself—but oh, how she knew it. She was letting loose some flaming profanities that even Leo himself didn't use.

Mildly impressed, he debated whether or not to call her out on it. Clearly she was banking on no one understanding her. It might embarrass her.  _But,_  he wondered,  _does Reyna even_ _ **get**_ _embarrassed?_  She was untouchable, a goddess, a queen (as her name so aptly pointed out)—impossible for any normal, mortal college student, except that  _she was exactly that_.

Reyna called the self-checkout some more unprintable names, and Leo grinned. "Who's pissing you off?" he teased her, meeting her in Spanish.

She whirled around, irritation burning hot in her eyes. He wasn't entirely sure if it was aimed at him or the machine. With anyone else, this would be the time for him to bow out, but this was Reyna. Teasing couldn't hurt a goddess.

"I don't think that particular model  _has_  a mother," he pointed out in Spanish, "but if it did, I'm sure it would be appropriately wounded. If it had, you know, feelings."

"I thought you were meeting Piper and Annabeth," Reyna said flatly. She had returned (pointedly) to profanity-free English.

Of course, that didn't mean  _he_  had to. " _Puedo arreglarlo_ ," he offered. (I can fix it.) " _Prueba esto_." (Try this.) She stared at him, looking like she would rather go through junior high again than do anything he recommended.

" _En serio, pruebalo. Solo quiero ayudarte_." (Seriously, try it. I only want to help you.)

Her eyes darkened even more, if that was possible. "We are  _not_  on  _tu_  terms," she warned him, just as Annabeth appeared at Leo's side with her car keys in her hand. Looked like they did drive the Geo, then.  _Que pena_ , what a shame.

Annabeth was one of the few people who didn't cower at the wrath of Reyna, but she did know enough not to antagonize her further ( _unlike me,_  Leo thought happily). "I came to give you the keys, if you wanted to take your groceries to the car," the scary-smart blonde said to Reyna as she took in the mix of anger, unscanned groceries, and annoying automated instructions. "What's the holdup?"

Leo tried to make an unbelievably witty crack about his attractiveness, but Reyna spoke over him. "The machine is giving me trouble."

"Ah." Annabeth made a small shooing gesture at Leo. "Go find Piper. I'll help Reyna get this sorted."

"But—" he protested.

She glared.

"Okay," he squeaked, his voice cracking in an unmanly way, and as he backed away, he heard Annabeth telling Reyna to do exactly what he'd been trying to get her to do.  _Rude_ , he thought. But he knew not to cross  _esa loca_ , that crazy one, so he took his cart by the front and dragged it along behind him as he headed for Aisle 3, which, according to the signs, was the land of boxed snacks and cereal. He turned there and found Piper defacing the side of a box of Cap'n Crunch.

"Whatcha doin'?" he teased her.

She paused, glanced up, and then went back to work when she saw it was only him. "Defying my roommate. Hey, can you check security for me?"

She was the best at picking up everything and talking herself out of trouble, but no one beat him at the electronics of security systems. He glanced around and found the single security camera on this side of the food section. Extrapolating quickly from its angle and rate of rotation, he said, "You're good, but they can see your elbow every 10 seconds. Might want to stand a few inches closer to the shelf."

"Thanks." She shifted out of the camera's view. At least someone appreciated his skills.

"Why Cap'n Crunch?"

"Why Raisin Bran?" she retorted, and then she stuck her Sharpie and her X-acto knife back in her hoodie pocket. "There. Unrecognizable barcode. Put this in your cart." She held out the cereal box.

"Oh, sure, throw me under the bus," he complained, but he took it.

"You'll be fine, Whiny. Just keep the barcode covered at all times, and pass the box off as paid-for ASAP. You're welcome for the free lesson. Now, what are you buying?" Piper peered into Leo's cart, wiggling her fingers in the air as she took inventory for any duplicates.

He shrugged. "Work stuff and burrito stuff. Nothing you'd be interested in."

"Que surprisa."

He was pretty sure she meant  _que sorpresa_ , "what a surprise," but she was trying (and besides, her specialty was French), so he only blinked really hard and moved on. There were less sensitive topics he could tease her about. "Are we doing dinner soon?"

She pulled out her phone and scrolled through her different calendar views. "Tomorrow morning we have that World Myth study session in the library, and then Annabeth and I have a roommate date in the afternoon. But Sunday night I'm free, you wanna come over?" Looking up at him, she hesitated, "Or, I mean, I could co—"

"Sure, I'll come by," he interrupted, quick as a good brake response. Brake that particular train of thought. Piper was definitely his best friend—had been all through high school at that stupid Wilderness School, "where the kids are the animals," as they liked to say—but he had managed so far to keep her 100 percent away from his Sleeping Place, and he planned to keep it that way. Sharing the Sleeping Place would . . . Well, it wouldn't be good for his image.

"Okay," Piper said, "we'll do tomorrow night. I'll spring for the pizza."

"Sounds like a plan."

She looked disappointed, but this wasn't something he could help. Sorry, beauty queen. He didn't make a lot of good life decisions, but she had to trust him that this was one of them.

* * *

Midmorning rain smattering against the windows, the library was empty, silent, and peaceful for a Saturday. With one exception: Quiet Study Room #3 on the lower level, which was at the moment neither particularly quiet nor particularly studious.

The lit review was giving them trouble— _them_  meaning Leo—and Reyna was in no mood to deal with it, thanks to cold, wet weather and a headache like a train wreck. Blowing a strand of hair out of her eyes, she flipped an encyclopedia open with a resounding smack. "I'm telling you, it's right here! No one ever found their way out of the Labyrinth alive."

"I could have done it. It'd only take me a  _minotaur two_ ," Leo grinned, twirling his mechanical pencil between his fingers. He hadn't even opened his laptop, and she was about to tear her hair out.

"Jason," she said through gritted teeth.

Her roommate looked up in surprise, his arm slung around Piper's shoulders as they pretended to read chapter four together. "Hmm? Sorry, what?"

"Kindly explain to your girlfriend's platonic life mate," she gritted out, "why it might be a good idea to  _read_  the lit he's supposed to be reviewing."

"Come on, Leo," Jason sighed, but the threat was benign and barely implied, and Leo's impish grin only widened, deepening the dimples in both his cheeks. Piper and Jason snuggled back into each other. Reyna scowled across the table and pointedly pulled the encyclopedia into her lap.

Maybe five minutes passed in only the sounds of rain and flipping pages. Leo even pulled out an illustrated copy of  _Motifs in Mythology_  and, surprise of all surprises, actually opened it. The pinching headache at the base of Reyna's skull began to dissipate, and then . . .

"This is boring—I'd rather read something else."

"Fine," she said. "Find another article or book or something."

"Has anyone written your biography? 'Cause if you were words on a page, you'd be  _fine_  print!" Leo declared, slamming his barely-opened book shut and sliding it away from himself.

The pressure clenching in on every side of her head felt like it was going to explode. Clenching her jaw against many (suitable) insults, Reyna bookmarked her page and reached for her purse. "I just remembered, I need to wash the dogs before cross-country practice," she said, her voice tight. "You guys have fun."

"Reyna—" Jason started, but she swept out the door before he could finish whatever best-friends plea might tempt her to stay. Careful not to slam the door on the way out, she nodded at the librarian and glided out into the rain, cringing as it slapped her wet in the face. Her jeans clung to the fronts of her thighs, and her shirt to her chest, as the fabric soaked slowly through.

 _Too cold. Too cold_ , she repeated to herself unhappily, which probably didn't help. She skipped over a few puddles and across the potholes in the crosswalk and stopped alongside her 'Stang, which she had driven to the library on little more than prayers. She slipped the key into the door, pulled it open just as far as necessary, and dropped into the seat, tugging the door shut to shield her against the rain.

While she appreciated not having cold rain in the face anymore, the slight reprieve didn't alleviate her concern over her car's fidelity.  _Please please_ , she prayed, hoping against hope that this prayer would be answered just like the one Monday morning.

She twisted the key in the ignition once, twice.  _Rrrrpptthhh_ , gargled the engine. She wasn't sure what that sound meant, but she knew it wasn't what she wanted to hear.

Reyna leaned back against her seat and sighed, glaring up at the ceiling.

* * *

Jason pressed the heels of his hands to his temples, an uncanny image of Reyna. "Leo, man, you've really got to lay off."

"My ability to annoy is an integral part of my personality," Leo protested, flicking his lighter on and off and ignoring the guilty twist in his gut. "You might as well ask me to stop being breathtakingly handsome."

Piper rolled her eyes. "Quit."

"Not you too, beauty queen!" he complained. "Ganging up on me."

"Okay, you know I love you," she said, pointing at him with her pen. "But even you have to admit, you get even more obnoxious around Reyna."

"I really want her to like you," Jason said, "but you're making it really hard."

"Me? But she—"

The blond gave him the stink eye. "Not her. It's on you."

Leo's jaw dropped. "Rude." So yeah, maybe he did like to get on Reyna's case a little. But she always reacted to it, even if just in angry silence, and besides, it wasn't like anything was going to come out of it. The president was lightyears out of his league, even more so than normal girls. Sure, he'd stopped flirting with the others, but flirting with her was like flirting with a goddess—more for the fun of the attempt than anything else.

And then the study room door opened, and in stepped Reyna herself—and Leo almost fell off his chair. Because the goddess queen president was dripping rainwater, her dark hair soaked almost black, her blouse and jeans clinging to her curves. The rain created a sheen on her tan skin, and little droplets clung to her eyelashes. She swiped her hands over her damp arms, her lips trembling a little at the chill of air conditioning.

Leo hadn't even realized she could look like that.

 _Shit_ , he thought.

"My car won't start," she said, her words directed at Jason, "and it's pouring. Give me a ride home."

"I walked from a team meeting," he said with a guilty wince.

"I bummed a ride from Leo," Piper apologized. She sounded regretful, like she knew Reyna would probably rather walk than drive with Leo, but Leo realized the regret was uncalled for. He couldn't be such an ass anymore, not after this, not if he had to treat her with the same respect as Hazel and Callie and the other girls.

Because Reyna wasn't a goddess. She was a girl. A human who got soaked in the rain and had car trouble and swore at faulty self-checkouts and didn't like to be touched. How had he missed this? And without his realizing it, his grip on the lighter loosened, and a little smoke began to drift up from the underside of the table.

She was actually human, potentially in Leo's league, and somehow that made her even further out of his league than he'd realized before.

"Piper," he forced out, feeling his body temperature rising as he averted his eyes and made an unimaginable offer: "you want to borrow Festus?"


	11. All Right

 

The sour smell of oil, sweat, and metal permeated Hephaestus Auto Repair, much as Reyna could have predicted. She sat stiff and cross-legged in the chair closest to the open window in the waiting room, breathing through her mouth and eyeing the ceiling as she, Jason, and Piper waited for Leo to let himself in from the back room. The stale, humid air probably made the smell feel worse than it was, but she wasn't exactly in the greatest mood to start with. Her clothes remained soaked and stuck to her skin, and the base of her skull still pounded with headache.

When the other two began playing footsie under the coffee table, she pulled out her World Myth textbook.

She was reviewing the Roman pantheon, looking for anything she could use in her research paper, when the door behind the front desk flung open and Leo trotted out wearing a faded golden tool belt and twirling a key ring around his left index finger. "It's a go," he said brightly. "And there's no one here, so you guys can totally come hang out with me in back if you want."

Under any other circumstances, Reyna would  _not_  want, but it was her 'Stang back there and she would be damned if she let the consistently hyperactive Valdez so much as think about it without her supervision. As much as she trusted Jason, who had advocated the mechanic, she distrusted said mechanic more. So all three of the waiting-room guests rose from their seats and followed Leo through the door to the work garage, where, thank the Lord, both garage doors were up and letting a good breeze circulate.

"So this is where you work," Jason said. "Nice." He appeared unaffected by the stench of man and machine, or maybe he was just being polite. Reyna didn't think she was making it up.

"Where are the others?" Piper asked as she wandered to the CD player and plugged in her iPhone. "Are you guys not open Saturdays?"

Leo shrugged. "Nah, we usually are. Today Beckendorf had a funeral to go to and Nyssa had, I dunno, something, and I had you guys this morning, so we decided to take the day off."

 _Are we here to discuss weekend plans or fix my car?_  Reyna thought, and though she didn't say it out loud, she pursed her lips and crossed her arms and glanced pointedly at the black machine of perfection sitting a few yards away. And shouldn't their boss, whoever it was, have taken issue with their self-scheduling? Not that she cared, of course. But still.

Jason picked up on her nonverbals first, probably because he had years more experience with her Are We Doing This Or What tics than the troublesome two did. "Hey, guys, so… the car?"

"Oh, yeah," Leo mumbled. He glanced Reyna's way, got wind of her hard stare, turned a curious shade of red, and wheeled himself around. He hand went to his lighter, and Reyna snapped.

"Don't take that anywhere near my car," she ordered, stepping forward and blocking his path. "The lighter stays five feet away at all times."

"I'm not gonna—"

"Five feet."

" _Jo_ —sheesh." He caught himself and screwed his mouth up, something between a grimace and a pout. "Fine. Here." Reyna breathed in sharply when he tossed the lighter to Piper, but the barista caught it cleanly. "Happy?"

"Relatively speaking," Reyna said, her icy gaze drilling into him.  _Happy_  was never her descriptor of choice around him; she fluctuated on a spectrum between  _not yet irritated_  and  _homicidal_. "I'll be closer to it if you can fix my car without repeating the microwave incident."

"That was one time!" Leo protested, his voice cracking with indignation.

"Reyna," Jason cautioned her. She glanced his way and he nudged her forearm with the ridge of his knuckles. The message was clear:  _Play nice_.

"Oh, here it is," Piper said to herself, still over by the CD player functioning as an iPod speaker, and then music began to play. A happy tenor sang,  _I will kill you in your sleep, so you better try, try and keep awake_. Reyna saw Piper grin to herself, and an appreciative smirk quirked her own lips. Leo, who picked up on the musical warning as well, backed toward the Mustang, and Reyna pointed two fingers at Jason.

"It's lunchtime," she told him, as if he and his loudly grumbling stomach hadn't already noticed as much. "Go pick something up and bring it back. You can take my card; I'll stay here and… supervise." Pulling her wallet out of her bag, she tugged out her debit card and held it out.

He nodded once and took it. "Will do. You have any preferences?"

"Not that Chinese place we tried last week—it only offers lies and deceit. Anywhere else."

"Pizza?"

She gave a wave of assent, and he headed for the door. "Use it as credit!" she called before he disappeared, and his loose salute was the only sign he'd heard. But he knew her and her intense dislike of being charged needlessly, so she sat down beside Piper, who was flicking through her music selection, playing songs for a verse and a chorus before finding something else.

Reyna was only half-listening when one song began with a soulful  _I'm burning down tonight_. Piper sucked in her breath and hastily pressed  _next_. Reyna assumed she was worried about reminding her about the microwave incident, but when Piper glanced up to make sure all was well, she looked not to Reyna but to Leo. Strange.

After that curiosity, though, Piper seemed content to sit without talking, and that suited Reyna perfectly well. More time to work.  _Probably should try to draft part of the World Myth report,_  she decided, since the headache-inducing morning work session had put that project on her mind already. As she rooted through her bag for a pen, her fingers closed around a creased, stiff envelope. What she pulled out was the letter with no return address, the one Annabeth had hypothesized was spam. Reyna had almost forgotten she had it… almost. The handwriting felt as heavy as a sword, and the unopened envelope weighed down her bag.

 _Should I open it?_ she mused, worrying the top right corner between her fingers. If it's from  _her_ … Surely there were other people with similar handwriting. It could be spam, like Annabeth had suggested. It could. It could.

Repeating this mantra to herself, she slid her thumb under the flap and slowly, carefully, dreadfully, listened to the paper crackle as it separated, as her thumb slid from the left corner to the right. Once the flap fell backward, she reached inside the envelope and pulled out the letter—cold white, folded into martial thirds, almost as stiff as its matching envelope.

 _Please be selling something,_  she prayed as she unfolded it and looked down to the header greeting written in that handwriting so regimented it could have been typed:

_Reyna._

Her stomach dropped.

"Ow!  _Joder_!" Leo yelped, and something clanked loudly in the Mustang's engine. Desperate for anything else to think about, Reyna shoved the letter into her Mythology textbook and pushed herself to her feet.

"What did you do?" she demanded.

"Nothing!" he insisted, but she was already on her way over, her arms crossed tightly over her chest.

"Something just went  _ka-clank_  in my engine," she gritted out, stopping at her front right headlight and peering into the machinery for the source of the noise. "It wasn't a ghost. Now what did you do?"

He made a face at her.  _Very mature_ , she thought. "I told you, it's nothing. I pinched myself opening the engine oil filter and dropped my pinhead screwdriver. Thanks for worrying, though," he added, a bit more brightly, as he reached into the engine and fished out the fallen tool.

 _I wasn't worrying about_ _ **you**_ , she thought, her grip on her crossed arms tightening, but she shifted her weight, planted her feet, and leaned in to keep an eye on whatever he was doing (or trying to do). As he placed his knee on the bumper and finished opening one of the filters, she asked, "Why are you doing that?"

He wiped some dirt from his cheek, but there had been grease on his hand, so he only replaced the fleck of brown with a streak of black. "Just basic checkup," he explained. "Gotta make sure the computer's on before you try to fix a bug, don't you?"

Ugh. He probably thought she was stupid. "I deduced as much. Why are you doing  _that_?"

He reddened again. "Oh. Sorry." He sped up when he blurted his explanation, and she only made out "checking" and "just in case," which gave her zero new information. But she took pity on him.

"I see."

"Your car is in really good condition, though," he continued with a jump of his eyebrows. His awe slowed him down enough to be comprehensible. "Like,  _Transformer-level_  good. How've you managed it? Who's your mechanic?"

Reyna smoothed her braid, tilting her chin up just a bit. She took pride in her answer: "I do the basic maintenance. For the big fixes, I call up some personal friends who do this for a living."

" _I_  do this for a living!" Leo pointed out. "Look, do they charge you for it?"

"Yes," she said, confused as to why that was a question. "I pay the standard fee. I don't ask for special treatment; I just happen to know them personally."

"Okay, here's what I propose." He glanced her way before he recapped the filter. "You come to me, I'll give you a discount. Piper, you like your discount, right?"

"Right!" she called faithfully from her seat by the CD player.

"See? Customer satisfaction," he insisted.

"I really don't—" Reyna started.

"Pleeeease." Leo actually looked away from the engine and clasped his hands together, a desperate, pitiful plea. "Come on. Let me work on your car. Pretty please."

Reyna held her ground, but she was tempted to take a step backward. She got that he was a car guy—he had to be, to work as a mechanic—but he seemed to love her Mustang even more than she did. Hmm. Well, he couldn't be all bad, then.

"We'll see how well you fix it this time," she said neutrally.

"Yes!" Leo pumped his fist and grinned, elfin dimples appearing on either side of his face, and he threw himself back into his work with renewed vigor.

Reyna heard Piper laugh, closer than expected, and when she turned, the other girl stood near her left shoulder. "What a dork," Piper said with a screwed-up smile, loudly enough for Leo to hear.

"Aw,  _quiete_ , beauty queen," he replied, with his head still under the car's hood.

Piper blew a raspberry at him. "Don't Spanish at me today. I'm out of practice."

"Okay," he said agreeably. "I'll translate into French: shut-tez vous the hell up-eax."

"Flawless," said Piper.

The door to the waiting room jiggled a few times, and then Jason shouldered through, two pizza boxes balanced on his forearms. He called, "I come bearing gifts," just as the pizza-smell hit the three who'd stayed. Reyna and Piper hastened to alleviate his burden (namely, by taking the pizza from him), and Leo scrambled out from under the hood, pausing only to caress the car's bumper and promise his quick return before he threw himself at the nearest table.

"Yaaaassss," he sighed. Reyna and Piper set the boxes of pizza down on the tabletop, and he inhaled deeply. "Almost as perfect as me. Let's eat."

"I thought we could just sit around and admire the cardboard until the pizza gets cold," Piper suggested, and Reyna had to pretend to dust something off herself so she could hide her smile.

"Did you bring any plates?" Reyna asked Jason once she'd pulled her facial muscles into submission.

He smiled ruefully. "Next best thing?" he offered, and he handed each of them a wad of paper towels.

Leo accepted his handful of improvised napkins with one hand and draped half of a pizza slice into his mouth with the other. "Yaaaaas," he moaned. "Dude. Is this extra cheese?"

"With pepperoni, yes. The other is mushroom and green pepper," he added, and Piper pulled the second box towards herself with a terrifying expression on her face.

"Don't you have lunch plans with the scary architecty one?" Leo protested, reaching across the table to bat her hand away from her mouth, but she simply leaned backward out of his reach.

"Yeah," she garbled smugly through her mouthful of pizza, "but that's not til two. This is just a slightly late elevensies, bro."

"I understand that reference," Reyna said casually as she dabbed the grease off her own slice. "I read the Lord of the Rings trilogy every summer. I enjoy the idea of the Hobbit culture, even if their calorie consumption is completely unsustainable in reality." She smiled at her own joke, and the other three laughed, their heads thrown back as though they starred in a 90s sitcom.

Reyna shook her head, and the daydream dissolved. Leo was still swatting at Piper, who now taunted him with her third slice. Jason tried to swallow his bite without laughing. Reyna swallowed hers, but it felt more like a stone than a few ounces of food. She ran student government without a hitch and so far managed a 4.0 GPA; why could she not manage to contribute to normal conversation?

"I love pizza," Leo declared, kicking back on two chair legs. "I love the crust. I love the sauce. I love the cheese. I love the pizza-juice on top of the cheese."

"That's disgusting," Piper informed him.

"Thank you."

After the four of them had demolished the two pizzas (plus a few cookies that Leo had left in a Ziploc bag inside the phone table), Jason walked Piper out front to wait for Annabeth to come pick her up, and Reyna took up her supervisor position by Leo as he went back to trying to dig out the source of her car's problem. Finally the mechanic slammed the hood shut and swiped his hands on his pants.

"I think that did it," he said, in as close to a pensive voice as Leo Valdez ever got. "Let's give it a try."

"I'll do it," she said immediately. Before he could protest, she snatched her keys from the stool and slid into the driver's seat, the paper floor cover crinkling under her feet.

Leo nodded and waved one hand over his head. "Okay," he called, flashing her a thumbs-up.

Replying with a tiny nod, she pressed her key into the ignition… and turned.

The dash trembled momentarily. The engine coughed once… and then turned over into the beautiful purr she knew so well. She didn't realize she'd been holding her breath until it whooshed out between her lips.

"Aaaaaaaayyyy!" Leo cheered in the rumble of Mustang engine. "Yeeeeahhh, whooo! That's what I'm talking about!"

She glanced up at him and found him doing some sort of weird victory dance, more of a full-body flailing than any sort of rhythmic move. He scrunched his eyes up and swung his head back and forth, his curls bouncing like a two-year-old with the movement. He pumped his scrawny arms in circles, kicked his legs out in a backwards cha-cha, twisted his hips as though he thought he was Elvis. And to her surprise, she felt her lips twitch.

"All right," she called from inside the car, and the sound of her voice made him pause. "You did all right."

The flush spreading over his face didn't keep his grin from spreading even faster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: The songs mentioned in this chapter are "Stay Awake" by 100 Monkeys and "Burning" by Phantom.


	12. Softened

 

"I just need you to pick up my morning shift," Rachel Elizabeth Dare pleaded over the phone. "I have the world's most impossible sculpture project due at noon and at least three hours of work left to do, at least."

Piper yawned, ruffled her already untamable hair, and squinted at the clock on the microwave. In the early-morning, curtains-closed darkness glowed the numbers  _7:15_. Ugh. "Rach—"

"Please, Piper! Please. I will be eternally grateful. I'll even treat you to coffee."

"But we both get coffee for free at work," Piper protested in a mumble, her eyebrows drawing together as she tried to simultaneously understand the artist's offer and reach the box of raisins-and-dates oatmeal on the top shelf of the pantry.

Rachel's sigh rasped in the phone. "I know. It was a joke."

"Oh."

"Yeah. So, anyway, thoughts?" she asked hopefully.

That girl was way too awake. There had to have been caffeine involved. The tip of Piper's finger grazed the side of the oatmeal box, and she used the tiny bit of leverage to push it against the wall until it tipped upward, the corner jutting out far enough for her to grab it. "Okay," Piper considered as she set the box on the counter beside the bowl and spoon, "what time does your shift start?"

"Eight." Something crashed in the background, like a pile of dishes falling over, and she yelped.

"What was that?"

For a moment, the only answer was silence. "Two hours' worth of work," Rachel finally forced out, her voice strained, somewhere between Angry and Dejected with a little Pulled-An-All-Nighter Exhausted thrown in for good measure. Even in her drowsiness, that pushed Piper over the edge.

"All right," Piper sighed. "I'll do it. Get your thing done, and come get some coffee afterward."

"You're a lifesaver. Thank you, thank you. I'lltalktoyoulaterkaybye—" The call dropped, either because the Dares lived out in the middle of nowhere (which Piper knew they didn't) or because Rachel had hung up. Piper tried to summon up some irritation, but she was still too tired for such a complex emotional response, so she just poured water over the oatmeal and stuck it in the microwave for a minute and a half. Emotions could come later. After oatmeal. Yes.

So she dragged herself through the bowl of oatmeal—through putting on a cool, flowy peasant shirt (found at a secondhand store that put its profits toward supporting free trade) over cutoff jean shorts—through waving goodbye to a sleepy Annabeth and driving to campus. The radio went in and out the entire drive, and she was just awake enough to feel irritated as she switched between stations, all of them finicky thanks to that week's storms.

She was wiping down the counter of Nectar and Ambrosia, twenty seconds away from officially opening for business, when she heard the rising chatter that meant student gov had opened its doors after a meeting. First she saw Hazel, shadowed by Nico, her mane of curls bouncing as she waved for Frank to hurry up. The two of them waved at Piper, and she waved back, but they didn't stop before passing through the door. Nico disappeared too, presumably with them, but she found him hard to keep track of, so who really knew where he might be going?

Setting her iPhone on the fridge and turning up her own music to cover the "Easy Listening" (aka  _Hard_  Listening) music crooning from the overheard speakers, Piper leaned against the wall beside the blender and waited for an even more familiar face. Appropriately enough, that face appeared during the first verse of the song "10 Out of 10":

"Morning, Pipes," Jason called, his eyes scrunching up in his smile as he headed straight for her.

She blew her hair out of her eyes. "Morning," she replied, leaning over the counter on her elbows. "Can I get you anything? Our specials today are Hot Cashier and… well, Hot Cashier. Our supplies are a little low today."

He blushed, but he teased her back, "Sounds good to me."

A small, embarrassed laugh burst between her lips, and quickly she looked down to fiddle with the iron ring that spiraled around the base of her left index finger. The coil looked like a snake, or a vine, depending on the angle—a leftover from the only arts 'n' crafts day the Wilderness School had ever dared to offer. She had butchered her attempt at a bracelet that doubled as a lock pick, so Leo had whipped up the ring (with one hand literally behind his back) before getting back to designing his miniature flying ship.

Jason shifted his weight further onto the counter, making his biceps bulge against his T-shirt. Piper tried to avert her eyes, but somehow they just kept coming back to the arc of solid muscle. Her eyes trailed from his veins, streaks of translucent blue that branched out like lightning, to the strong lines of muscles in his neck, the clean angle of his jawline. He still smelled like aftershave, or maybe deodorant, whatever it was that gave him that distinctive guy smell that made her stomach twist up in a ball and jitter like a two-year-old.

Her fingers clenched in the edges of her sleeves.

He made a squeegee noise with his mouth, and she forced herself to take the opportunity to focus, to look him in the eye. They were as blue as some of the copper compounds she'd pocketed from last spring's chemistry lab, practically shone from his face ( _maybe that's the espresso talking_ , she considered), so it wasn't too hard to keep her eyes there either.

"So, you want a couple, um, a couple espresso shots?" Piper asked, her tone sounding a little forced even to her own ears.

Those blue eyes scrunched up in a smile. "You have a good memory."

She laughed and shook her head, feeling a little heat rise in her cheeks. "It'd be more impressive if you didn't order the same thing every time," she teased.

A light flush dusted his cheeks as he shrugged his shoulders and laughed. "All right," he admitted cheerfully. "I'm a little predictable."

She drew back toward the espresso machine, but her fingers lingered on the counter. On impulse, she leaned back toward him and kissed him lightly on the lips over the counter. His rough fingers glanced at the nape of her neck, curling up into her hair. Even at such a minor touch, the fire clenched in her stomach again, and she couldn't help but linger so close to him.

"That can't be sanitary," Octavian said snidely from her right. He sounded a little different than usual—maybe he was sick or something—but Piper pulled away, her mouth twisting downward. She shifted her weight to treat the student gov scarecrow to a piece of her mind—and leaning against the bar was Leo, a grin splitting his face and a streak of engine oil on his cheekbone.

Her scowl screwed up into a disbelieving O. "Asshole!" she gasped. She tugged a towel from the cabinet rack and snapped it against his arm. "I totally thought it was him."

Leo turned his grin on Jason. "Been working on my Octavian impression," he confided. "Getting fan-frickin'-tastic at it."

"That's creepy," Jason told him.

"What is?" Reyna asked, coming up behind him and stopped at his shoulder, and it was then that Piper gave up on getting Jason to herself a little longer before classes. Leo she could chase off, but Reyna was above her pay grade.

"Leo's pretending to be Satan," Piper said, ignoring the look Jason gave her. "Freaking me out. You want your mocha too, since you're here?"

Reyna nodded, and a smile flickered across her face. "That'd be great. Thanks."

Piper turned and pressed the triple-shot button on the espresso machine, and as that rumbled to life, she knelt to pull the gallon of skim milk out of the fridge. "What about me? I want something caffeinated," she heard Leo complain, and she pointedly closed the fridge door with her middle finger. She wasn't treating him to anything after  _that_  joke.

"How about dinner tonight?" Jason asked as Leo took a breath between whines. Piper glanced over her shoulder, but he avoided meeting her gaze, or Leo's or Reyna's. "All four of us. Frank said he and Hazel found this really good place yesterday, and I thought it'd be fun to try it out."

She tilted her head to try to catch his eye as the espresso sputtered out of the dripper into the little cardboard cup, but he stared resolutely at his hands…  _Oh, yeah,_  she thought, suppressing a smile.  _Subtle._  She considered calling him out on the bad lying, but damn, the guy had spent so long on the straight-and-narrow, she felt a little bad to take away his one little effort. Odds were, he wouldn't be able to live with his lie anyway, and his guilt would make him explode. Once the espresso finished dripping, she passed him the cup.

Reyna looked a little suspicious as well, but Leo remained unfazed. He probably hadn't even noticed. "Sure, yeah, I don't work today," he chirped. "What time?"

Jason was starting to turn red, so Piper suggested, "I think it's supposed to rain tonight, so let's maybe go earlier. After World Myth?" Pressing a lid onto the medium mocha cup, she passed the hot drink to Reyna, who nodded thanks.

"Yes, great, that's a good plan," he blurted before covering up, "Driving in the rain makes me nervous. Can never see anything."

Reyna gave him an eyebrows-raised Look.

"Uh-huh," Piper said. "Okay." She glanced back to Reyna, who met her eyes and let a small smile curl her lips. An unspoken (and unexpected) message passed between them:  _How cute. He's trying._  Piper hadn't pegged Reyna for one to take an attempted deceit lightly, but maybe because it was Jason, and a bad lie at that, she was willing to wait it out. And find it funny in the meantime.

Brushing a wayward sprig of bangs out of her eyes, Piper leaned against the counter and wondered what else she had yet to learn about the student gov president.

From around the corner came a cluster of boisterous (too boisterous for 8am, in her opinion) sophomores, who caught sight of Jason and immediately fell onto him, talking over one another. He seemed to know them, and he ended up bidding Piper, Leo, and Reyna an embarrassed "see you later" and leading the loud group away to the couches further away from the coffee shop, presumably so the three wouldn't be bothered.

After half a minute, Leo pulled out a half-gutted clock and began picking at the innards on the side counter, leaving the girls to themselves. Reyna sipped from her cup, the slight crease in her forehead smoothing over at the taste, and Piper studied her own frayed hemp bracelets.

"Do you like working here?" Reyna asked, barely lowering the drink from her mouth, and it took Piper a second to realize the question was meant for  _her_.

"Well, I mean, I like it better when I'm not the one opening," she joked. "I wouldn't exactly call myself a Morning Person."

The president smiled again, the third time in as many minutes. "Same."

That felt honest and friendly enough, and then— _Hang on,_  Piper thought. W _e've had this conversation before, and Annabeth's said otherwise too._  "I thought you feel productive in the mornings? And you run with your dogs, right?"

She nodded. "I do, but mostly out of habit. Getting up is pretty much the devil, especially if I let it go for a few days."

An open admission (or near-admission) of human weakness? Piper saw Leo's eyes flick up from his clock-fixing, but by the grace of God he didn't comment. She was almost painfully aware that it was Reyna she was talking to, and while it felt surprisingly normal, the idea of messing this up terrified her.  _Please don't,_ she mentally broadcasted at her best friend. Don't  _what_ , well, who really knew. He could be even more inventive than she without trying.

But Leo said nothing, and Reyna only sipped from her mocha again. The silence felt pointed, almost oppressive, and Piper, at a loss for what constituted Casual Conversation with the scariest girl she'd ever met, offered, "It's pretty flexible work, though. And I get paid to talk to people, so that's cool." She conveniently left off the  _getting paid to pickpocket_  part. It wasn't like she kept most of the stuff, anyway.

"You're good at that, then." It wasn't a question.

"Talking to people?"

Reyna nodded slowly, and Piper shrugged, feeling a mild heat simmer on her cheeks at the sort-of compliment. "I mean, I guess. Hard to be my own judge." Especially when there weren't criteria like  _did I convince them to give me a flat-screen TV_.

The other girl considered this. "Remind me what your major is."

"Environmental science."

"Ah. Does that require a lot of talking to people?"

Piper grinned crookedly and shrugged again. "Ha, I'm not sure. I don't really know yet where I want to go—I just want to do some good with it."

"Crazy tree-hugging vegetarian," Leo muttered, looking up with a grin at them from his now-ticking clock. Piper brandished her towel threateningly, making him pretend to cower, and Reyna (Piper saw it!) hid a smile behind her cup.

* * *

Rain was just beginning to patter against the windowpane, droplets reflecting the blue-grey of the stormy sky, but the yellow glow of lamplight and the burble of conversation warmed those inside the restaurant Jason had chosen. Piper covered her mouth with one sweater-hand to suppress her laughter, though she could still feel her shoulders shaking. To her right, Leo's curls vibrated every time he snorted; across from her, Jason too was still recovering from half-choking on his final mouthful of burger, and Reyna had had to set down her glass of water without daring to drink any. The conversation wasn't even that  _funny_ —it was just… dumb. And easygoing, and unexpected.

Once the four had simmered down enough to catch their breath, Reyna finally took her sip of water, just before Leo asked her, "Hey, is your Kickass Vehicle still back to kicking ass?"

Piper glanced between them, crossing her arms.  _Is this really a safe question?_ she wondered. If the Mustang had crapped out again, it would be one more thing for her to hold against him.

But by the grace of God, Reyna's smile still softened her eyes. "Yes, it is. I haven't had any problems." She hesitated, but then she added, "Thank you."

Leo's dimples made an appearance (as did most of the blood in his body, he was blushing so hard just looking at her) in a smile that split his face. His knee started to jiggle under the table, which might have gone unnoticed had he not accidentally bumped it and knocked his glass. Almost in slow motion, the lemonade rose from the tilting mouth, reaching for him like a watery yellow hand. All four zeroed in on it, and his eyes widened as he tried to scoot backwards out of its way, but they were in a booth and there was nowhere he could go in the half-second before it splashed all over his front. The smile froze into a cringe.

The glass clattered onto the table, drawing the attention of a few other customers, who promptly looked away upon seeing Leo's unfortunate expression. For a moment, Piper and the student gov pair just watched lemonade drip from his nose and bloom further across his shirt as it soaked into the fabric. Reyna, ever pragmatic, picked her water back up from the table and started to drink what was left, presumably just in case. Eventually he huffed out a breath, shook his curls (sprinkling Piper with droplets— _thanks, bro_ ), and tried to straighten up.

"Well," said Leo, "since I can't possibly become any more soaked, I'm gonna go stand outside until we leave. So if anyone asks, I'm outstanding."

It took Piper a second. "Oh my loooooord," she groaned, rolling her head back and reluctantly smiling at the bad pun. In the beat longer it took the other two to process, an ungodly choking noise came from Reyna's direction. Piper looked up in time to see her cover her mouth with her hands, coughing uncontrollably, a little water leaking between her fingers.

"Geez, are you okay?" Jason grabbed half the napkins from the dispenser and shoved them at her, starting to press them around her hands himself when she didn't immediately take them.

Once the coughing subsided, Reyna accepted the napkins and began to dab at herself, her head down, the flush in her cheeks barely visible. She said nothing until she was all cleaned up, and then she smoothed back her perfect braid and mumbled to herself,  _"Outstanding."_  When she straightened again, her lips were pressed together against a tiny grin.

Piper stared.

Jason stared.

Most of all,  _Leo_  stared.

Reyna's fingers hovered over her mouth, but her irrepressible little smile was still plainly visible. "Check, please," she called to their waiter as he passed. He did a double take at the two people spattered with drinks and then walked a little faster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: the song mentioned is "10 Out of 10" by the Korean band 2PM.


	13. Blood Thicker Than Water

Reyna could still feel her face burning as the four of them stepped out of the restaurant, huddling under the awning so as not to get wet—or  _wetter_ , in her and Leo's cases— in the rain still pounding the pavement. Thankfully, the cool breeze of the storm brushed by often enough to help calm her back down. She certainly hadn't meant to spurt water all over herself, and she would have just stayed dehydrated if she had known the pun was coming. Logically she didn't think the others would hold the mishap against her, but part of her still cringed in embarrassment.

Pulling his jacket over his head, Jason ran out into the parking lot to get his car. Even over the pounding of the rain, she could hear the car creak as he jumped in and slammed the door loudly, hurriedly, behind him.

"How come we never ride in Katoptris or Festus?" Leo asked while they waited. "They're way cooler."

"Jason likes to follow traffic laws." Piper shrugged and made a playful he's-weird-like-that face. "Like stopping at stop signs. Nitpicky things like that."

"We always slow down most of the way!" he protested, with a grin on his face that suggested they were just joking. Reyna hoped so.

The beat-up Honda pulled up to the curb, and Piper rushed for the passenger seat as soon as the car jolted into Park. Leo and Reyna bolted right behind her and were in such a rush to get under cover that they forgot to bicker over how they did it.

They made it back to the apartment, though it took them a little longer than usual because Jason drove slower so he could actually see. Since Piper's "hobbit house" and Leo's… wherever he lived… would be an even longer drive in the storm that was only darkening, Jason and Reyna invited them to come in and stay until it passed over. (Well, technically Jason offered out loud and Reyna nodded and held the door open. She decided that that counted as her inviting them as well.) All four stepped inside, kicked off their damp shoes, and then collapsed onto the living room furniture. On the loveseat Piper stretched her legs over Jason's lap, and Leo and Reyna settled into the two armchairs.

They all sat quietly, still pleasantly warm and full from a good dinner, until Jason blurted out, "I lied, I'm sorry"—although he said it so fast it came out more like  _IliedI'msorry_. His face burned red, as quickly as if someone had flipped a switch. Reyna felt her eyebrows jump at the same moment she saw Piper's do the same thing. He'd held out longer than she'd thought he would, but she was now long ready to hear whatever apology and reasoning he offered for his roundabout lie that morning.

"Frank did mention that restaurant, sort of," Jason said to his knees (or Piper's knees maybe, as those were closer). "Maybe a week ago. But I didn't, um, that wasn't why I suggested we go."

"Oh?" prompted Piper.

Jason switched his attention from their knees to the ceiling. "My parents wanted me to go home for dinner tonight," he admitted, voice low. "But things are a little… I didn't really want to go. So I told them I already had plans with you guys."

"And when was that?" Reyna prodded. He wouldn't have been acting guilty in the morning if they asked after he really had already made plans.

"Last night." He sighed. "It wouldn't have been as bad if Thalia were around, but she's not, and… I really am sorry. I won't lie again, I've felt horrible about it all day."

Leo held up his hands as if to ward off the innocence. "Dude, don't worry about it."

"Yeah, you can totally use us as an excuse whenever," Piper agreed.

Reyna nodded. She and Jason had already established each other as their go-to "oh, sorry, I already had plans" person; she presumed his remorse stemmed from including Piper and Leo without their prior permission.

Jason let his head fall on the back of the sofa. His voice rasped low with the guilt he'd been hiding. "I just, I feel awful. Not just for lying. Am I a horrible person for not wanting to eat with my parents? Shouldn't I be—?"

"No," said all three at once, a little harshly. Reyna felt like she spit the word, and she had to force herself to sit back and smooth out her forehead. If just that made him a horrible person, then  _she_ … No. Not now. This wasn't about her.

"If you don't want to, that's your right," she said, quiet but firm. "You're an adult with good judgment."

"But they're my parents," he argued, lifting one hand instead of his head. "'Blood runs thicker than water' and all that. How can I care more about you guys than my own  _parents_?" His voice cracked on the last word, making Reyna's heart tug at the back of her throat, and Piper reached over to skim her fingers across his hair.

"Funny thing about that quote, actually," the barista mused aloud. "I've heard we actually got it backwards somehow—that it originally meant the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb."

Jason tilted his head slightly, allowing her better access to rub his head. His blue eyes blinked a couple times and then looked up at her. She smiled down at him, winked ostentatiously, and then booped him on the nose with her index finger.

"So, Mr. VP," she teased him, "you get to choose your friends, which makes you more attached to them. And we're such unbelievably  _amazing_  friends, no wonder you like us so much."

Leo pretended to flip his hair, which really just made the mess of curls wobble like Jello, and a tiny puff of a laugh blew out between Reyna's lips. It might have been bigger, had she not been thinking, with no little wonder,  _Does_ us _include me?_ It certainly seemed to, and of course she  _was_  Jason's friend. She just hadn't quite registered that she was Piper's and Leo's friend too, enough to be included in a group compliment, even if it was only a joke.

Jason grinned reluctantly, his brow smoothing over, and a small smile tilted at Reyna's lips.

* * *

Reyna took a second to lean against the fence that bordered the apartment complex. Bolts of cramps flickered up her legs, her neck and face still felt half on fire, and she could both smell and feel the sweat soaking her shirt.  _You let it go too long,_  she chastised herself; she had cut her runs off around three or four miles for the last month, and now doing six had become a painful overdose, especially on an unseasonably warm afternoon. Shaking out the cramps, she straightened and headed for the gate.

Her gaze flicked across the tiny parking lot and landed on a familiar car: Katoptris, Piper's jacked-up Malibu. Jason had been home alone when she left. How long had she been out running? Uncertainty held her feet at the gate—would she be interrupting anything?—but she forcibly let up the latch and pushed through, heading for their door. She lived there, too, after all.

After a pause at the door (which she would deny if anyone asked about it), Reyna turned the handle and pushed her shoulder against the door to give it that extra jolt of pressure; it'd hardly open otherwise. As the door swung open, she noticed two things: 1, Piper's boots lying along the wall beside the door, and 2, some heavy breathing and squeaky noises coming from the couch. She lifted her gaze just in time to see Piper and Jason break apart on the loveseat, both looking distinctly rumpled. Piper's complexion hid whether or not she flushed at being interrupted, but an obvious pink flush was working its way up Jason's neck and face, no question.

"Oh, hi," he mumbled. "Are you—?"

"Just on my way out," Reyna finished for him. Granted, she'd intended to stay, but given that they were clearly having some Personal Time, she no longer felt like sticking around. In one smooth motion she swept up her track bag from where it sat along the wall by the door. She knew it had travel-size shower bottles and at least one change of clothes. "See you two later."

"See ya," Piper said weakly just before Reyna turned and let herself right back out the way she'd come.

 _Well, that hadn't been_ wholly _unexpected,_ she admitted to herself,  _but it does leave me in something of a bind._ Pulling her phone out of her pocket, she set her track bag down on the front step and dialed Annabeth's cell number, in hopes of gaining permission to drive over and use her shower. She waited for the other girl to pick it up, but the ringing only went to voice mail. It wasn't worth leaving a message; she only pressed End and leaned against the siding with a sigh.

"All right," she said to herself. "Next option."

The nearest shower available to her was at the gym on campus—the women's locker room in the athletic center. Since it was the off-season for track, she didn't have a locker, but her track bag had everything she would need, and she could still use the showers. Pulling out her car keys, she clicked the Unlock button and skipped off the step to open the driver's side door and toss her bag into the passenger seat.

Since the drive to campus took less than a minute (and really, she could have walked, if she hadn't felt like her legs were falling off), heat still tingled in her face and fingertips from the run, so when she parked she headed for the indoor track. Walking a few laps would help take the sting off, and then she would have actually exercised at the gym to merit showering there. The perfect plan.

However, she had to suppress a groan when she walked in and saw the track cordoned off for some event or other. Ugh, she'd have to use a treadmill. She scanned her student ID at the front desk and then headed for a treadmill close to the track, just in case the meeting finished before she did. As she turned up the machine speed, though, she glanced over into the meeting going on there in the spare gym, and almost immediately she recognized a curly blonde ponytail sprouting from the back of a Yankees baseball cap. Annabeth! That black-haired guy slouching beside her would be Percy, then. Reyna deduced it must be a meeting for Central transfers, based on the bright orange sportswear, the color of Central University, spackling the rows of students. AU originals would never be caught in that fiery shade.

The fiery orange of Central…

It hadn't been her fault, the fire. She hadn't even been there when it started. But then she picked up her phone and heard Jason's voice, incomprehensible but so frantic she had no choice but to run over to the rival campus—where fire roared up the sides of buildings as fast as if someone had poured gasoline from the roof, and the flames seared her skin without her even coming near.

But it hadn't been her fault, and she knew beyond a doubt it hadn't been Jason's, though the way he clamped his mouth shut whenever the topic came up suggested otherwise. And yet… something about it… The fire had been too widespread, too fierce, to have come up out of nowhere. And President Grace had been so quick to bring over the transfers.

Reyna shook her head and tried to focus on the solidity of her braid on her back, her feet on the treadmill. The mental effort let the twisting orange of potential arson fade back to the flat orange of T-shirts and jackets, of nothing, it's nothing, just walk and don't think.

* * *

The walk and the following cold shower left Reyna calmer, abler to breathe. Once she'd rebraided her still-damp hair and folded her running clothes into the Dirty Clothes section of her track bag, she slung both the braid and the bag over her shoulder and headed back up the hall to the main atrium so she could leave. But she wasn't the only one leaving then: the transfers meeting must have just let out, because a mass of students was merging out of the spare gym and into the atrium. She narrowed her eyes for a moment, looking for a break in the crowd that would give her a route to the door, but the mass looked impassable. She turned and headed for the side door, the road less traveled, and she almost collided with Annabeth and Percy.

"Fancy meeting you here," the blonde teased, tugging her Yankees cap a little further down her head. "Sorry I couldn't pick up when you called. We were in that meeting…"

"We didn't have to be," Percy pointed out.

"Um, no, we did," Annabeth corrected him. "It was mandatory."

"Like no one skipped."

Reyna thought of her best friend's visitor and neglected to mention that she knew for a fact that Piper had skipped. Jason probably didn't know he was aiding and abetting. "What did they talk about?" she asked instead.

Annabeth shrugged. "Just reconstruction updates mostly. They introduced some transfer guidance counselors, reminded us to look for classes that will transfer back. Nothing super new."

"And she wonders why I wanted to skip," Percy joked with a crooked grin, and when his girlfriend huffed and elbowed him, Reyna couldn't help but smile as well.

"Ooh, where are we skipping to?" Leo asked, loping up with a grin to match all of theirs. "I'm a super good skipper, just FYI. My legs are short so I get the rhythm exactly right." He skipped in place for a second to show them, swinging his elbows wide and his knees high.

Reyna wasn't totally sure whether he'd honestly misinterpreted Percy's comment or was just being a dork. "Not that kind of skipping," she said, just to be sure, and he pretended to be shocked—being a dork, then. Having already used up her quota for embarrassing laughter for the week (with the pun-induced water-spurting incident of a few days ago), she just pressed her lips together, though she could still feel the corners turn upward.  _Why are these things funny?_  she asked herself, unable to find a good answer. Yet they were. Maybe this came as part of the Making Friends and Liking People package; you started to assimilate their sense of humor, and your not-so-soft spots for them started to soften up. Huh.

Annabeth glanced at her watch. "Well, it's 5:15. You guys have dinner plans?"

"I was planning on staring romantically at you while I stuffed my face with a cheeseburger," Percy suggested.

She snorted. "Yes, that does sound fabulously romantic.  _Or_  we could get something to go and all hang out at the hobbit house." She glanced at Reyna and Leo, raising an eyebrow in the implied invitation.

"You're passing up a date?" the skateboarder protested.

"If I can help it, yes," she teased him.

Percy turned to the invitees and ramped up his Sad Baby Seal face. "Say no," he pleaded. "I haven't seen her since last Tuesday. She had an exam."

Though Annabeth seemed perfectly honest in wanting all three of them around, Reyna hesitated to accept. Percy could get touchy-feely when he'd been separated from his girlfriend for too long, and she'd barely made it out of the Jason/Piper makeout session with her dignity intact.

"I'm actually going to head back home, if that's okay," she said. She didn't give a specific excuse; thank the Lord she and Annabeth were close enough friends she didn't have to.

The other girl nodded, and Leo spoke up: "I gotta go too, sorry." He added, "I have a car to work on and stuff," and the fact that he gave an excuse at all suggested he felt the need to do so. She had known he exaggerated his self-image, his skills, his illegalities for comedic effect. Did he exaggerate his friendships as well?

Reyna shook her head a tiny bit. She was overanalyzing everything. She was probably hungry.

Annabeth said something, and then Percy snarked about it, but Reyna came back in right at the end, so she only nodded a smile at whatever the three were laughing about and adjusted her bag over her shoulder. "I'm going to head out," she said once they'd gained their breath back.

"All right, see you later," Annabeth said with a smile and a little finger-wave. Percy gave a nod and a lax two-finger salute. Leo bounced on the balls of his feet and gave her a tiny, stiff wave with his eyes on the wall just to her left.

 _I am definitely in need of food,_  she decided. So she turned slowly on her heel and headed down the side hall, past the locker rooms and main gym, towards the doors that opened near the parking lot (or at least near enough—that horde of students still allowed no room for sneaking in). Minutes later, as she was opening the door, she heard distinctive bounding steps behind her, and then Leo appeared at her side.

"Did you drive?" she asked him as she held the door open behind her.

She glanced over her shoulder and saw him shake his head no. "I rode with Piper."

Apollo U didn't usually hold meetings that lasted less than 45 minutes. "She didn't get here until at least half an hour ago. Probably sooner."

"Yeah, I was late. I thought it was an accomplishment I came at all, personally." He grinned up at the tree they passed under.

She elected not to say that she agreed with him.

The stream of students still filtered between them and the parking lot, but not enough to really block Reyna's path, so she headed for her Mustang at the back of the lot, and Leo followed on along behind her. When they reached her car, she unlocked it and nodded for him to get in. He looked at her like there was a trick behind the gesture. "No trick," she said. "Time for you to test out your own work."

"My car and Piper's are both my own work, and I practically live in them," he countered, but he ducked into the passenger seat before she could rescind the offer. They slammed their doors shut almost in sync, and when she twisted her key in the ignition, her engine purred beautifully. "So far so good," he joked.

It made it there fine, of course. Reyna pulled into her parking spot outside the apartment, turned off the car, and opened the apartment door just enough to drop her track bag inside. Piper's boots sat in the exact same place. She picked up her purple wallet-purse and closed the door again, turning in time to see Leo stepping up beside her.

"You aren't going inside?" he asked.

She almost laughed. "Jason and Piper are having some  _quality time_ ," she said, inclining her head on the last two words for significance.

Leo grimaced, though his snorting laughter made it a half-smile. "I gotcha." He made a show of stepping away from the door.

Uncertain how to entertain the entertainer, she shrugged and sort of flailed a wave toward the sidewalk. "I'm going to… walk a bit." She could have cringed at herself.

"Oh," he said. "Um. Want to… walk together?" Then: "I have to go that direction anyway, y'know, work, that car, I have to work on that car," he added in a rush, all one breath, an intense backtracking that took her by surprise.

She shrugged, pretending she wasn't acutely aware that she was about to voluntarily spend time with her best friend's girlfriend's criminally unstable best friend. "Sure," she said, "why not?" (A month ago, she could have given plenty of reasons why not.)

So, in an awkwardness that could have transcended time and space, they each stepped off the little porch, between the cars, and toward the sidewalk that led into town.


	14. Economical

It started off as a study session. Really. It wasn't Piper's fault that Jason smelled extra good today. The spice of whatever-it-was (guy smell couldn't be analyzed) burned in her stomach in the most pleasant way possible. When he leaned in close to point out some line in the textbook that she could use for her paper, it had taken all her self-control not to jump his bones right there on the spot. And she hadn't done it! She deserved a medal of honor, or at least a Snickers bar or something.

Of course, once she managed to convince him to set the laptop aside for a second…

And now here they were, Jason's hands fisting in Piper's hair, her lungs straining to find air while her higher priority was kissing the shit out of him. His hair had grown out long enough now that it tickled, and every so often she had to back off for a second and rub the heel of her hand against her forehead so it wouldn't itch. Unfortunately that meant no kissing for those five seconds, but it did have the unexpected bonus of giving her that much more time to catch her breath. (She promptly leaned back in and lost it again every time.)

After Reyna stopped in the second time, Piper had to shake off a little embarrassment, so she slid off the loveseat and padded to the kitchen, straightening her shirt and hair as she went. "You want anything?" she asked Jason, trying to make her voice sound less rusty than it felt in her throat. The holy-eff-I-am-insanely-attracted-to-this-guy rusty that his kisses created.

He got up and came over to her. "Gonna get some water, I think." He started to tell her that she was welcome to whatever she wanted, and she cut him off.

"I  _promise_  I understand," she teased. "You've only reminded me, like, 530 times."

He grinned abashedly. "Sorry."

"No worries." She opened the fridge door and crouched down to peer inside. She'd been thinking of having water herself, but then she had a better idea. "Do you guys still have that super-good cider stuff? I don't see it."

"Yeah, it's behind the milk." He pointed, but she was already moving the gallon of skim out of her way. There it was: tawny glass bottles of possibly the best hard cider she'd ever tasted. All four of their weird group were over 21, so no one would be in trouble for having or drinking it (though she'd never seen Reyna drink), but Jason still watched her carefully as she pulled out one of the bottles and rifled through a few drawers for the bottle-opener.

"Worried I might get raging drunk and try to use you for my own indecent ends?" she asked him, eyeing him back. She found the opener, placed it over the lid, and savored the hissing pop when she twisted it off.

"Just making sure you can hold the bottle. You sounded a little shaky there for a second," he teased her, but then he realized he sounded like he was commending his own kissing skills, and he blushed some more. "Not that I think I'm—it probably wasn't—"

"Probably  _was_ ," Piper said, sending him a mock-sultry look before turning away to take a swig of her cider. Heat was already burning on her cheeks too; that had nothing to do with the drink.

* * *

Reyna felt like a fool for agreeing to go on this walk.

This, so far, had been the longest five minutes of her life. She couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't make her sound like a complete idiot, and Leo kept taking in a breath like he had thought of something, holding the breath, and then exhaling loudly like he'd decided no, that wouldn't be a good idea either. She had chewed the inside of her cheek, had fiddled with the chain on her wallet-purse, had stared up at the clouds in the hopes that something interesting would happen. Maybe an airplane or a nuclear war or something like that.  _Anything_  to break the silence.

Of course, the utter silence meant she had a chance to really contemplate all her recent life decisions. She'd decided that she would start running in the mornings again, maybe for an extra half-mile each week until she worked her way back up to where she had been, athletically. It wouldn't do for cross-country season to come around and for her to find she'd lost all her aerobic stamina.

She also needed to work on that World Myth paper for Mr. D. Sure, the monster wasn't due until almost the end of the semester, but it would kill her if she procrastinated. Maybe she could convince Piper and Jason to detach their mouths from each other long enough to have another four-person study session in the library soon.

She was trying to think of a polite way to say "please stop groping each other" when she heard Leo actually say something.

"So," he said, stuffing his hands into his pockets, "how long have you and Jason been, y'know, BFFs?"

It wasn't exactly scintillating conversation, but it was better than nothing. "We've been best friends since first grade," she said with a slight smile, "when we almost killed each other in dodgeball. We only started living together when—"  _When Hylla left._  She cut herself off. "When we graduated high school. It's an economical arrangement." The unspoken alternative: a romantic one.

"I gotcha." Leo nodded. "Me and Piper, we've been besties since junior high. We met in detention." He grinned, a dangerous spark in his dark eyes. "And then we both got sent off to this ass-hat Wilderness School out in the middle of nowhere. It was a real bonding experience, lemme tell you."

Reyna had heard snippets of some of the stories Piper had told Jason about that.  _Bonding experience_  was a nice way of putting it. "'Where the kids are the animals,' right?"

His eyebrows shot up. "Yeah. Exactly. Good memory. You been talking to Piper?"

"I guess." In truth she didn't remember exactly when she'd heard their flippant tagline, or who from. All the conversations blurred together. "You were glad to get out?"

He snorted. " _Oh,_  yeah. I'd take busywork over crappy camping trips any day of the week."

She smiled a little at the sidewalk. When she glanced back up, he was grinning to himself.

* * *

Half of Piper's cider was gone when she and Jason went back to the living room. The concentration of alcohol was too low to give her a strong buzz, but she still felt the warm, minor tingling in her stomach and fingers. She'd picked up a new movie from the library, one she hadn't seen before, but Rachel Dare had told her it was a good one. She stuck it in the DVD player, and the pair settled in to watch.

Unfortunately, Piper had failed to take into account Rachel Dare's artistic tastes: the weird semi-documentary, like stream-of-consciousness fiction, probably worked great for the literary geniuses, but not so much for college students looking for entertainment. They ended up turning it off and just chilling there on the couch.

"Sorry," Piper said for the millionth time. "I swear, she swore up and down that this thing changed her life."

"So she lied," Jason teased.

"Well, only once or twice."

He tugged playfully on one of her little braids. "Oh, so it's okay to lie once or twice, but three is too much?"

Guilt soured the joke, but she tried to ignore it. "It's like murder," she joked. "One or two people is okay, but three is bad."

Jason laughed in shock. "Oh, that makes sense. Three is too many."

She laughed a little, and then it faded to just a smile. "My thoughts exactly." She considered the angles of his face. Did honesty, decency, have a particular angle? Was she wiping it from him, little by little, every day she neglected to mention her thefts? He'd already tried to lie once. She was a horrible influence.

The slight buzz had disappeared.

She wanted to kiss him. But she could only (just barely) keep herself from wringing her hands, because how could she possibly deserve him?

* * *

"Gooooaaal!" Leo grinned and shook his shoulders and hips in something like a victory dance. The little chunk of gravel he'd kicked had flown right through the opening in the gutter that went down to the sewer.

Reyna wrinkled her nose at the bad dancing (though she herself wasn't exactly a stellar dancer) and said dryly, "A truly amazing play. Shouldn't you be starring in the World Cup instead of wasting your talent in academia?"

He pretended to fluff his hair modestly. "I know, it's hard to believe. But I just have so much to offer the world, I couldn't limit myself to just one area. Just think—if I only owned at soccer 24/7, no one would get to see what an awesome linebacker I make!" He pantomimed putting on football pads, made a growly face, and then paused just before cracking himself up.

The mere mental image of this scrawny boy trying to play football made Reyna's lips curve upward in a smile. Not derogatory so much as just amused. At least he could laugh at himself (and his utter lack of linebacker-like qualities).

"When does Nina's close, do you know?" he asked. The little white building stood yards ahead of them, and the scents of spicy burgers and cool ice cream already flavored the air.

Reyna pursed her lips and tilted her head to consider. She didn't go there often, but she vaguely remembered the thin white letters on the door: "Ten on Saturdays, I think."

"Ooh, we have plenty of time, then. Wanna grab something?"

She was tempted to say no thanks. Tempted for about half a second, and then her stomach grumbled in complaint, a reminder of her long run and short lunch. "Sure," she said in almost a sigh.

So they went in and ordered dinner to go: a couple slices of pizza and a Coke for Leo, a chicken flatbread and a hot chocolate for Reyna. When the woman on duty handed them their bags and told them to have a good one, they said the same to her and then headed back out into the late September air. The afternoon had been warm, but now that it had cooled into early evening, the breeze was less welcome. They would make it to Hephaestus' Auto Repair before the sun fully set, at least, but Reyna still tugged her sleeves a little further down her arms. Walking had seemed like a better idea half an hour ago.

"Ugh, we better get there soon," Leo said, echoing her thoughts. "My stomach is hungry."

"That would be  _you_. Your stomach is not a separate entity unto itself." The  _unto_  came from the time she spent with Annabeth.

"Yes it is, and it's  _hungry_." He sucked down a fourth of his Coke.  _Non-diet soda does have calories,_  Reyna considered, but it wasn't like she'd forbidden him from eating on the walk.

"Eat your pizza, then." She sipped her hot chocolate, trying to absorb its heat through her hands.

* * *

Piper couldn't banter much longer after that. She left, almost ashamed when Jason kissed her on the cheek at the door, and she drove back to her and Annabeth's hobbit house. Annabeth was out back with Percy, but they'd left her a few pieces of cheese pizza. She took the otherwise empty box to her room with her.

She locked the door and sat down hard against the wall.

It was hard to eat the pizza when she began to sob into her palms.

* * *

When they got to the auto shop, Leo cracked all the windows for air flow but turned up the heat just a bit, enough that the garage warmed up pleasantly. Ironically, Reyna considered, she'd heard a few ill-advised students refer to her as the Ice Queen, when really she hated the cold.  _Hated_  it. She planned to move out to California as soon as she graduated.

"You think you'll stay a bit,  _reina_?" he asked from the phone table as he clocked in. His tone seemed carefully neutral, but the questioning bounce at the end betrayed him: he hoped she would.

"Sure," she said, unwrapping the first half of her flatbread sandwich. (The motion conveniently distracted her from seeing how he reacted.) She took one bite, chewed, swallowed, and then asked, "Do you have any normal work hours? It seems like you're always in here after the place should be closed."

He shrugged and then trotted over to plop himself on the chair across from her. His Coke in one hand, his remaining pizza slice in the other, he eyed the two options with life-or-death concentration.

"I think I'll have pizza first," he finally decided, tone and expression serious, and he solemnly lifted the slice to his mouth and bit into it.

Reyna held the sandwich over her mouth in case she smiled and had food in her teeth. "What a hard decision. After all, you've never tasted either one before."

He almost choked on that bite of pizza. "Geez, wait for me to finish chewing before you go being funny," he gasped. "Sarcasm is pretty low on the humor totem pole, but it still counts, and death by pizza would make for a pretty lame funeral."

"'I'm so sorry for your loss, Piper. I tried to tell him the pepperoni looked weird,'" she pretended, one hand over her heart.

Leo snorted.

They quieted a little, just enough for them to eat some more of their dinner, and then he piped up, "Hey, since we're here and somehow, like, getting along, is that a free pass for me to just ask all the questions I've always wanted to know about you?"

She squinted at him, not completely sure if he was joking or not.

"Okay, how about five? Five questions."

It would at least keep them from the awful silence of their first five minutes. "Three. And I get to ask you three."

"Done." He slurped the last of his Coke and then waved for her to follow him over to the car he was working on, a grey Saturn that looked like it would automatically fail anyone in a maneuverability test. She carried her chair over and set it down by the engine, and she sat down comfortably while he leaned deep into the machinery.

Briefly she wondered if he would ask… what was it that he and Piper and Jason called them? The Freshman Three.

"First," he said, his voice echoing against the metal, "do you  _actually_  do homework in Spanish club?"

She laughed out loud in surprise. Not what she'd expected. "Sometimes," she said. "Not always." Other times she caught up on her telenovelas and just switched to homework when anyone dared come near. Not that she would admit that to him just yet.

"I knew it," he muttered. "Okay, second—"

"Wait a minute," Reyna interrupted him. "Three for three. I believe it's my turn."

"Oh. Sorry." He glanced up at her curiously. "'Kay, go."

 _Oh, I should have thought this through ahead of time._  "Why do you bother to go to college when you don't do half the work?" She spoke neutrally, because it wasn't an accusation, just something she was curious about.

He accepted the question. Likely he knew full well it was true. "I'm here to learn," he said. "Not book learning—hands-on stuff. I get out of it what I need to."

"Ah," she said, actually understanding that and a little surprised that she did. She had majored in business management more because it would be practical for her future job than because she just loved academics. But still, she did all the work and kept her grades high; her sense of duty (and scholarships' requirements) would allow nothing else.

After a moment he added, "And my grades are high enough I can keep my scholarship. Just so you know."

She nodded. "Okay, question two."

He considered his options. "Uh…"

"I thought you had all these burning questions to ask me."

"I do! Two. How come you and Jason never, you know…?"

The thought should have hurt, would have hurt once, but now only doused her in a sort of tired relief. "He wasn't interested. I guess he knew me too well."

This answer made Leo suck his cheeks in. "He wasn't, but you…?"

"I'm not," she answered smoothly, "and I hope that wasn't your third question."

"It wasn't! I was just clarifying!" He seemed jittery. "What's your second question?"

"Hmm." She thought for a second, and she remembered the fire in her microwave, the plume of smoke that tinted her cabinets grey. "If you're so much about working with machinery, why  _on earth_  did you try to put out an electric fire with  _water_?"

"I didn't!" he protested, jerking upward so fast he hit his head, and then he yelped a profanity.

"Oh? I distinctly remember you grabbing a cup of water," she countered.

He rubbed his head. "Well, okay, yeah, I  _grabbed_  it. But I'm not an  _idiot_. If the food was on fire, I was ready, and if it was electrical I wouldn't have used it.  _Obviously_."

"How is that obvious?" she objected, but his answer made sense. "Fine. Third question."

"You know how you and Percy are always all 'Rome!' 'Greece!' 'Rome!' 'Greece!'? Why?"

This made her pause. She'd never had to think much about it; it just came naturally. "I don't know," she said, looking up at the ceiling. "I guess I always… identified more with the Romans or something. You know, structure and discipline. Percy's more of a free spirit, so I imagine he prefers the Greeks and their…" She waved her hands in the air. "…free-spiritedness."

"Huh," he said.

Words were never her friend. Better for Leo to learn that now, if he intended to stick around.

"My last question," she started, and this one  _was_  something she'd been wondering: "Where do you live?"

Leo froze, and then, almost mechanically, forced himself to lean back into the engine. But it sounded like he was just tinkering on the same things over and over.

"Leo Valdez," Reyna said sharply, feeling her eyebrows draw together.

He glanced up at her, apologetic. "Can you pick a different question?"

"No."

He sighed. "I don't live with Piper," he said, "I don't live with you, and I don't live here. Despite what you might think," he joked halfheartedly.

"So where, then?" she prompted. Because as often as she saw him—on campus, at her apartment, at Piper's hobbit house—she hadn't ever actually seen him at his place, or even heard him  _talk_  about it. And after, what, two months now, that wasn't normal.

"I live economically," he said, almost echoing Reyna's own words describing her and Jason's arrangement. Except minus the friendship aspect. "It's kind of far away."

And that was the most she could get out of him on the subject.


	15. Customer Service

It was cold, dark, and raining, and gods damn it, it just hadn't been Piper's day so far. Pressing against the apartment's front door, she shivered and wrapped her arms tighter around herself, wishing for the millionth time she'd worn longer shorts or, say, a shirt with sleeves. Only the porch light provided a thin orange glow for the empty parking lot.

Annabeth had left town by now, but where was Leo? Where was Jason? Where was Reyna?

Saturday had been fine. Sunday Monday Tuesday, all fine.

And then…  _Wednesday_.

* * *

**Earlier…**

"Hey, what can I get for you?" Straightening her apron, Piper gestured with two fingers for the next in line, a sophomore named Will Solace, to come up to the counter.

He spilled half the contents of his wallet on the counter, clearly distracted. His eyes scanned the menu. "Just a large Americano, please," he said as he scooped the change into his left palm.

"Better you than me," Piper joked, tapping the buttons on the register screen before scribbling the order and name on a cup. "Those're just a bit too much for me."

"They're the minimum for me. Long days, y'know." Will grinned with a shrug, and he thanked her before passing her the exact change and sliding toward the open area to await his drink.

The milk steamer stopped shrieking, and a few seconds later, Rachel Elizabeth Dare popped the lid on a latte and called for a Lou Ellen.

Piper dropped Will's change into the cash drawer and tossed the receipt at the little trash bin. "I can get whoever's next."

"Hi, I was wondering if I could sample all your drinks," Leo joked in a fake-snobbish voice, bouncing up to the counter with a streak of grease gleaming across his forehead.

"Oh, sure, I'll get right on that," Piper replied in the same nasally voice. He was the end of the line, so she had some time to banter. "Just give me… a billion hours."

"I do have an exam to skip." He tried to wipe the grease away but only ended up smearing it more.

Really, though. "You want a dirty hot chocolate?" When he shrugged affirmatively, she pulled out a large cup and scrawled his name across the top with a flourish. To give her fellow barista a break, she started this one herself. She was counting out one, two, three, four, five, six pumps of the mocha syrup when—

"So, 'd'you pick up anything good today?" he asked, sounding only superficially interested, yet his expression jumped to shock at her response.

"Nah, nothing today. We've been pretty busy." Not strictly true. And Will had practically thrown his wallet at her (though her excuse for that was that she didn't want to steal from campus's best EMT, just in case). She busied herself with steaming the milk so she wouldn't have to look over at him, because he was one of the very few on earth who could pick out her lies at arm's length. And no doubt about it, Leo would have picked up on this one. He wasn't always the most perceptive of people, but he knew a lie when it smacked him in the face. Especially,  _especially_ coming from her.

Fortunately—despite her anxious overthinking—he was fidgeting with his phone and seemed not to have picked up on the stretched truth. In a not-so-subtle change of topic, she said, "I heard you and Reyna hung out yesterday evening. It looks like you're all in one piece, so I'm assuming it went okay?"

"Yeah, it was fun," he said, his too-casual tone contradicted by the blush steaming its way up his face. Piper would have bet she could've roasted a marshmallow on his cheek. (Not on his forehead, though. It would have gotten grease on it.)

She started the single shot of espresso and, as it poured out in two tiny streams, idly swirled it into the chocolate. "So, what, she sat there while you described your ideal engine?"

"Wha—? Shut up!" He shot her a look, screwing up his face as though offended. "For your information, O ye of little faith, we had a Deep And Meaningful Conversation." He considered this. "Well, kind of deep. Not super. But meaningful. Ish."

"Right," she teased, swirling whipped cream atop the drink and then popping a lid onto the cup. She held it out to him, and he snatched it away and nursed it, still giving her that look. But then Clarisse came over from the staircase and started eyeing up the menu, so Piper tilted her head towards the circles of comfy chairs; Leo took the hint and bounced away.

Unfortunately, she never got the chance to finish that conversation.

As if responding to an inaudible whistle, students trailed over, clustering into something like a line behind Clarisse. Rachel Dare had to leave for a class, which left Piper alone faced with an ever-growing pile of dishes and line of customers. Clarisse, thank God, only ordered a doppio espresso. Easy enough. It was the set of three different frappuccinos that made her stomach sink. She scrambled to scoop all the ingredients into the proper blenders while talking over her shoulder to the next in line.

Once she set those drinks whirring, she grabbed a Sharpie and a cup. "And that's a sm—?"

"Small soy double half-caf mocha with two pumps of chocolate and half a pump of hazelnut, no whip." Piper had just scribbled the shorthand when the girl stopped and said, "Actually, make that a medium."

Gritting her teeth, Piper threw the wasted small cup at the garbage can and pulled out a medium. "Got it. It'll be $3.45. Sorry, I'll be with you guys in just a second," she called to the ones who'd crossed their arms at the wait. Someone grumbled.  _Go step on a LEGO, Arnold Shitzenegger,_  she cursed him.

She couldn't be rude outright, or she'd lose her job. So when the jerk actually got his turn at the register, she only said, sugary sweet and a little out of breath, "Give me just a second," and then rinsed and dunked five or six of the metal steamer pitchers. Then she dropped them in the sanitizer sink, wiped her hands on her apron, and came back to the counter. "Sorry, we're a little short-staffed right now. What can I get for you?"

A red eye, as it turned out: two shots of espresso in coffee. Of course, it had to be the  _blonde_  coffee, which was a pour-over and took twice as long as the already-brewed stuff. She rang him up and told him it'd be a few minutes.

Another lady wanted a large bold coffee, three pumps of vanilla, no room. Great. Piper had it ready in twenty seconds.

Then a pumpkin latte, a pumpkin frap, and— _one of these things is not like the other,_ she thought—a peppermint mocha, all in one order.

The bold coffee lady came back: "This isn't hot. It's just warm." Piper brewed a fresh pot and poured her a new cup, all while staring down the espresso machine so she could switch out the pumpkin for the peppermint as soon as it finished.

Silena Beauregard ordered an iced tea–lemonade, but she warmly reassured Piper that it was no rush—the only one who sympathized. Someone else wanted a cappuccino, extra foam, and then proceeded to eye her down as she made it, complaining that she was making it wrong (she wasn't) and snidely commenting to his friend that she must be new. It took all her self-control to grit out her standard "have a good day" when she passed him the drink.

She was making the di Angelo kid a caramel apple cider when the bold coffee lady leaned over the side counter  _again,_ holding out her cup. "This is too strong," the lady said. "I don't mean to be a pain—"

 _Too late,_  Piper thought, pressing her lips together and raising her eyebrows.

"—but could you make it again?"

She desperately wanted to suggest that it wasn't the coffee that was the problem. But she dumped the entire, brand-new pot of coffee down the drain and set a third one to brew while she finished the cider. The two drinks finished at the same time. "Sorry about the wait. Have a good day," she said to Nico.

"Try this one," she said to the bold coffee lady, in a much chillier tone. Thank God, that cup seemed to do the trick: the lady left. "I can help who's next."

Piper vaguely recognized the guy who stepped forward. He played on Jason's football team, a starter. "I have this coupon for a free small drink," he said, holding out a slip of paper.

She took it and looked it over. "'Kay, what do you want?"

"Gimme a skinny caramel macchiato." Then he leaned in to whisper, "Make it a medium. You don't need to tell your manager."

Her gaze snapped up to his face. He wasn't kidding. "Your coupon's for a small," she said sharply.

"Yeah, but I'm here all the time. It won't be a problem." He shrugged easily, like he was entitled to special treatment, and she had to rotate her jaw to keep from saying something she would regret.

"Look, if you want the medium, you have to pay the difference. It'll be twenty-five cents."

"You serious?" The guy rolled his eyes, shoved his hand in his jacket pocket, and eventually scrounged up a quarter. "Here," he said, slapping the coin on the counter.

"I'll have it at the end for you as soon as it's ready." She tried to keep her tired irritation out of her tone. He glared at her out of the corner of his eye, but he moved along.

Four more fraps. A Starbucks-secret-menu thing she had to guess at. ( _We're not Starbucks_ , she had said.  _Try it anyway_ , he had insisted.) An extra-hot triple latte with a caramel syrup shot, vanilla drizzle, and extra whipped cream. Skinny chai with a pump of pumpkin sauce and a dollop of foam. Green tea, half a scoop of ice, a splash of lemonade. And no matter how many times she repeated  _sorry_  and  _we're a little short-staffed_  and  _I'll be with you as soon as I finish this_ , all she got in return were narrow eyes, crossed arms, annoyed grunts, and on occasion a literal tapping foot. The student center wasn't all that hot, but she could feel sweat dampening her shirt. All the while, the sink was piling up with pitchers and blenders, and she could only rinse one or two between orders.

One professor ordered just a plain brewed coffee, and she could have hugged him out of relief.

She didn't realized an hour and a half had passed until the next barista, Malcolm, showed up. At that point, she wasted no time in clocking out. "Have fun," she said as she pulled her apron over her head.

"How's it been?" he muttered.

The squealing steamer hid their conversation from the customers' ears. "Oh, we've had a little bit of a customer service problem," she said in a forced light tone.

"Really? What was it?"

"All the customers are assholes," Piper snapped, and she swiped up her purse and swept out from behind the counter.

* * *

When she checked her campus mailbox, she found a returned quiz from Mr. D that, appropriately enough, had a large red D scrawled at the top. She stuffed it in her bag as she stormed to her next class; she could ask Annabeth for the correct answers later.

* * *

During her last class, her phone went off—the chorus of "Talk Dirty," the joke ringtone for Jason's texts. Professor Lupa stared Piper down as, face burning, she rifled through her purse to find it and put it on silent. Once she managed that, she slouched in her seat, looking intently at her notebook until the prof started lecturing again.

Still warm with residual embarrassment, she glanced at the text on her way out of the room half an hour later:  _No student gov today,_  it said.  _Early dinner?_  She was tapping in the first word of her response,  _I'm_ , when she bumped into the recipient himself.

Jason's hands went immediately to her shoulders, steadying her as she stumbled backward. "Hey, I forgot you had a class," he apologized. "I didn't get you in trouble, did I?"

Already tired, she just waved her phone. "It was on high."

"I'm sorry."

She sighed. "It's fine," she said halfheartedly.

"Really—"

"It's  _fine_." She hadn't meant to snap at him. She glared down at her feet.

He shifted his weight and let his hands fall. Tentatively he said, "All right. So, did you want to do dinner?"

Piper cast about for a good excuse and came up with nothing, so she went with the truth. "Look, work was kind of shitty, and I'm exhausted. I'm not really up for socializing tonight. Is that okay?"

"Um, sure," he replied, his eyebrows drawing together in concern. "Anything I can do?"

She tried to laugh; it came out more like an old lady's cough. "Nah, but thanks. I'm just gonna head back to the hobbit house, have a cup of tea or something, and go to bed early."

He said something, but her mind was moving in slow motion; she blinked and looked up at him. "What?"

"Make sure you eat something," he repeated, offering her a tiny smile. "Being hungry makes everything worse."

She did manage a faint smile at that. "True."

"If you want, Reyna's making her super-good lasagna tonight. We'll have tons. You can come by and take some, if you don't want to cook." He hesitated, then joked, "It's better than frozen pizza."

He'd called it. And the offer tempted her—especially if she wouldn't have to stick around to eat it. "When would that be?"

"Probably six-thirty."

"Huh." She shrugged her bag further up her shoulder. "I might do that, actually. You should invite Leo, too. He might actually stay and hang out."

Jason group-texted all four of them the suggested plans, and Leo agreed not only to come but also to be Piper's ride home. So she left campus with Annabeth, soaked in the bath for half an hour, dressed for comfort, and asked Annabeth to drop her at the apartment on her way out of town for an interview. Granted, the "comfort" she had dressed for had been based on the earlier weather, 70 degrees and mild. Now she stepped out the front door in her shorts and tank top and winced at the 20-degree temperature difference.

"Are you going to be okay in that?" Annabeth asked, nodding to Piper's outfit of choice.

The sun had already set, but she wouldn't be outside all that long, just between cars and buildings. "Yeah, I'll be fine."

The blonde looked like she disagreed, but she pulled out of the driveway without protest. On the way there, droplets of rain began to fleck the windshield… and then turned into a veritable monsoon. Annabeth slowed down just to be safe, but she still had quite a ways to go, so Piper waved for her to go once she'd dropped her off at the apartment.

That was before Piper pounded on the door and realized no one was home yet.

So here she stood, shivering and exhausted and so frustrated her throat burned tight with tears. The wind occasionally blew the rain against her bare skin, and she had to choke back a sob. All she wanted was dinner, a cup of tea, and a warm bed. Was that so much to ask?

A pair of yellow-white headlights glared through the mist and pulled carefully into a parking spot right in front of her. She hardly dared to hope, because it was hard to see… but the car looked black.

The headlights died. The driver's side door opened, an umbrella bloomed, and out stepped a chilled-looking Reyna, who caught one glimpse of Piper and hurried up to the doorstep. As she shoved her key in the lock, she glanced at the barista, her mouth turned down in sympathy. "Rough day?" she asked quietly.

Piper nodded once, her jaw clenched because she didn't trust herself to speak.

Reyna opened the door and motioned for Piper to go in. She jumped out of the rain, shaking off her boots and inhaling deeply the smell of baking lasagna. The president kicked off her own shoes and went straight for a kitchen cabinet: she pulled out a mug.

"Tea or hot chocolate?" she asked.

Piper sniffled and managed a watery smile. "Hot chocolate."


	16. Better

"No, but really," Piper emphasized, "if I'm going to watch a movie, there  _needs_  to be popcorn involved." Draped in blankets, both girls had curled up in the armchairs, their feet tucked under them.

Reyna tilted her chin up a bit and squinted. She felt the same about her own movie nights, but she needed to clarify one important detail. "Microwave popcorn, or…?"

The barista grinned. "Aw, hell, nah! Air-popped! Mine's the best—and it's pretty low-calorie, actually, which means I can eat, like, five bowls in one sitting."

"God bless America," Reyna said reverently.

The doorknob rattled, and Jason shouldered through, Leo at his heels, both guys' left sides drenched with rain. (Their  _right_  sides, miraculously enough, remained mostly dry.) Arms jerking out and waving as if animated, Leo was telling Jason, "And then when I touched the two wires together—" His dark eyes zeroed in on the pair in the living room. "Piper! Reyna!"

 _There goes the girls' night,_  Reyna thought, unsure whether or not that upset her. "Lasagna's on the stove," she said, pointing.

The guys headed straight for it. "You guys ate half of it!" Leo complained, at which Reyna and Piper smirked at each other.

"You were late, and we were hungry," Reyna said.

When Jason came back, his plate loaded up with lasagna, he finally noticed Piper's apparel: she had helped herself to one of his oversized superhero shirts—the Flash one that had gotten him dubbed Sparky once. It took him half a second to connect it with his own half-soaked clothes. "You got caught out in the storm, too?"

Leo helped himself to the lasagna and then spread himself as far over the couch as he could—which wasn't saying much. "Wow, Piper, I didn't think you ever got caught," he said, glancing over with a meaning Reyna didn't quite catch.

"Can I tell a joke?" Piper asked in return, all innocence and big multicolored eyes. "It's funny and short… just like someone I know…"

"Ha, ha," Leo said dourly, but the other three were all giggling, and he could only force a scowl for so long before he gave in, rolling his eyes.

Jason finally sobered enough to ask his girlfriend, "How long are you planning to stay? I mean, I'm not, you know, trying to kick you out—stay as long as you want—"

Stammering. Reyna tapped one finger on the side of her mug, which now sat empty but still a little foamy around the top from the marshmallows.

He glanced at her, took a second to catch his breath, and finished, "—I just thought you wanted a night at home."

Piper shrugged with a smile. "I'm feeling better now," she said, and Reyna warmed up inside. She'd been able to help.

Of course, the best way to un-cheer a person up was to discuss academics, so Leo began describing, in detail, the lengths he had been taking to avoid working on the World Myth paper. "…And after that, I set off a fire alarm in the science building. Just in case."

"Just in case  _what_?" Jason snorted through a mouthful of lasagna.

The grinning mechanic shrugged. "I dunno, they might've thought I was working."

Piper shifted so that her legs hung over one armrest. "Real talk for a second, okay? We need to do one of those group work sessions again. I hate this paper, and it seems like the only time I get anything done is when I have the goody-two-shoes pair breathing down my neck in the library." A second too late, she winced at her word choice. "No offense."

Reyna had long ago embraced her role as law-abiding citizen. "None taken."

Despite his slight blush, Jason nodded. "I do think that's a good idea. When are you guys free?"

"Is anyone really free?" Leo asked philosophically, stroking his chin… and then he cracked up. Reyna pretended to check the clock so that if anyone saw her little smile, they might interpret it as part of the stretch.

"I could do it tomorrow evening," she suggested once she'd gone back to her contented neutral expression. "And, Piper, I've read the first part of your paper. It wasn't that bad."

"My thesis is like one of those exam questions you can never answer right," Piper insisted. "Badly written and endless. I had one once—literally, 'Tell me everything you know about recount the events, reasons, and motives of imperialism!' Just shoot me instead, I think that'd be less painful."

"Actually, that sounds like  _my_  paper," Leo considered.

"No, I read yours too, and it was worse than that," Reyna teased him, and then she froze because  _oh dear Lord_  she hadn't meant it, she just got caught up in the flippant atmosphere, had she screwed it all up?

But Leo eyed her and then cackled for joy, his dark eyes almost disappearing in his wide, dimpled grin. "Awww, we did it!" He and Piper bumped fists.

Reyna's horrified concern tripped into confusion. "Wait. What? What did you do?"

"You're joking around," he said like it had been a personal compliment. "You haven't done that before."

 _And you only joke with people you're comfortable around,_  she finished silently. The list had included only Jason and Hylla for how long? For half a second she considered taking it back and trying to return to her soldierly standoffishness… but Jason was beaming, and Piper was wrapped in Reyna's favorite purple blanket, and Leo was guarding his share of the lasagna she'd made from scratch. And the half-second passed, and she settled back into her chair in the knowledge that she liked this better.

* * *

"Jason, put these in the sink." Reyna gestured to her and Piper's dishes.

This wasn't the first time she had unconsciously bossed the vice-president quarterback around, and Leo had picked up on it. Must have been the years of ducking from authority. "Dude," he joked as the blond headed for the kitchen, "you know you don't have to do everything she says, right?"

Reyna pretended to shoot him a dirty look. "You're going to destroy years of training."

"Seriously? That's messed up."

"Jason, please warm me up a brownie while you're in there," Reyna called. A few seconds later, the microwave started up, and she smiled smugly. "Years."

"Do you have any key words I can learn?" Piper asked, leaning forward with mock intensity, and she laughed when Jason complained halfheartedly, "Hey!"

* * *

"Kings in a Corner! Kings in a Corner!" Piper chanted quietly, tapping her hand on the coffee table in time to the beat of her words.

Reyna had made the mistake (?) of mentioning she was pretty good at strategy games. It was already late for a weeknight, so they couldn't start Settlers of Catan or the like—which could easily take hours, especially on the expansion pack—but a good old-fashioned card game didn't need as long. "I lent my cards to Annabeth."

"Ooh, wait, I think I have a pack!" Leo hopped up from the couch and trotted over to the door, where he'd hung his jacket and tool belt.

"Why would you need a pack of cards in your tool belt?" Reyna asked. She barely raised her voice, but he heard her.

"The thing's practically bottomless, so why  _not_?" he countered as he returned with the belt slung over his arm like a waiter's towel. He dropped back onto the couch with a thump and started to rifle through the pockets. Presumably to keep track of where he'd looked, he tossed random thing onto the table: a wrench, a box of Tic Tacs, a broken Slinkie, a tiny screwdriver, and other things Reyna couldn't identify.

The longer he looked, the more his brow furrowed and his mouth screwed up. "I know it's in here," he muttered as he chucked his key ring across the wood. The cluster of metal bounced twice with pure momentum and then clattered to a stop at Reyna's knee. Intending to put it with the rest of his stuff, she picked it up and glanced it over.

Off the main silver circle hung four keys and a Swiss army knife. The black handles of two pristine keys were imprinted with the Chevy insignia—the Camaro, Festus, and the Malibu, Katoptris. The third, a nondescript copy, had been labeled HAR, Hephaestus Auto Repair, in rounded capitals not of his handwriting.

The fourth key, a rusted, spotty, scratched fake-bronze mockery of the expensive pair, bore no label. Reyna tipped it up with one finger, cocking her head to inspect it—but it was snatched away. Her fingers closed on empty air.

She glanced up just as Leo, red-faced, stuffed the keys ring back into one of the tool belt pockets. She eyed him, and he stubbornly refused to look up; tense silence gripped the atmosphere until he sighed in relief and pulled out the deck of cards. "Here it is!"

"Great!" Jason shifted forward, and Reyna almost laughed.  _He never has liked conflict,_  she thought fondly. Had Piper ever learned of his awkwardly evasive behavior when he first started visiting her at Nectar and Ambrosia?

Leo shuffled his cards and then dealt them, and Reyna almost forgot about the ugly bronze key… Almost. After she blew them all out of the water (well, all right, it ended up being close), he scooped all his stuff back into his belt pockets, and he headed out to start up Festus. Piper changed back into her now partially dry shirt and rinsed the dishes in the sink so Jason could stick them in the dishwasher. Reyna shrugged on a sweatshirt and then slipped out the front door. When Leo came back up the steps, she blocked his path.

"Come on,  _reina_ , it's cold," he complained, shivering.

She raised her chin, choosing to ignore the subtle flick of the  _r_. For a moment she grasped for something to say.  _What did I even expect, following him out here?_  she chastised herself. If she warned him he was acting suspicious, he'd just become sneakier, and then she'd have even less of a chance of figuring out what he was hiding. And for her to come any closer to actually enjoying him over at her place, she needed to know why he refused to have any of them over at his. Besides, she would much rather investigate him than the letter in too formal, too familiar handwriting that still sat unread on her desk.

She went with "You're Piper's ride, right?"

"Not if I freeze to death first."

"Will you be okay to get her back and then drive yourself home? It's kind of late."

"Don't worry about it," he chattered, which was not a satisfactory answer. She would have preferred some sort of hint as to how far away he was staying. "It's cool. Almost as cool as I will be when I become an  _icicle_."

Reyna cracked a half-smile. "All right, all right," she said as she stepped aside and opened the door. Then she added, precisely, "Please chill."

The warmth in his open-mouthed grin melted any chance she had left of disliking him.

* * *

The next morning, in her free time after a short student gov meeting, Reyna trailed along the back hall toward an offset office of Admissions. She let herself in and approached the front desk, where a well-put-together but baby-faced junior acknowledged her with a nod. Thankfully, her position as president granted her some privileges: she needed only ask for the basic student records and imply that student government needed them, and minutes later, that secretary had them copied onto a small flash drive.

Digital records in hand, Reyna continued to a small computer lab. Since she lived off campus, she rarely bothered with the labs, but she needed access to the campus network. She logged in, waited an eternity for the network to load, and then finally plugged in the drive.

The file opened in a program she hadn't worked with before, but it didn't take long to just scroll through. Familiar names caught her eye:  _Augur, Octavian… di Angelo, Nico… Grace, Jason… Levesque, Hazel…_  There!

_Valdez, Leo._

When she had looked him up on the student site, the Search-A-Student had given no address because he lived off campus. The records for contacting students might prove more helpful.

From the contact records file, she expanded Leo's information—phone, email,  _address_. "Damn it," she swore under her breath, her mouse hovering over the P.O. Box number listed as his mail-to location. Totally useless. A P.O. box wasn't a house, wasn't even necessarily a  _town_. The post office was right down the road, but he could have applied there from California.

"Hi," whispered someone.

It took Reyna a minute to realize it was aimed at her. Surprised, she turned in her seat to see an underclassman girl waving tentatively at her from a few computers down. She nodded and gave a quick smile, flicking one hand up in a sort-of wave, and the younger girl brightened and returned to her work.

Strange. Reyna was used to her students (they were hers, in a way) either avoiding her altogether or daring to approach her only in order to garner some favor or another—usually in the way of getting a message to Jason. This girl, though, seemed to have no ulterior motive. Just a friendly hello.

She didn't want to read too much into it, but maybe, just maybe, this was a sign that she had finally made some ground in breaking down the soldierly stiffness that had haunted her for years.

 _Anyway, back to business,_  she told herself. So she had been failed by Search-A-Student and the Admissions records. Maybe the network had something of use, deep down. She skimmed through the folder public to all faculty, staff, and upper-level student workers (like herself) for three seconds before realizing she could only see the folder information in a list. The dialog box was in its default, details mode; she changed it to the icon mode instead so she could see as much as possible. She held little hope that the search would turn anything up, but she knew for a fact that, based on the way the universe worked, if she didn't look now, it would end up being here.

Ugh, nothing. Just class content, scattered personal for-later folders, nothing really of use to her right now.  _How many course syllabi are stored on here?_  She was considering just X-ing out when a bright color caught her eye, a folder. All the others had been plain white or tan, as they contained only Word files, PDFs, typical course material. This one, at the forefront, showed a tiny image—a thumbnail for its contents. Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she double-clicked on it.

The folder had a generic enough name, "2014–2015," and it loaded painfully slowly. Reyna found it to be a common source for easily hundreds of images, some grouped into folders, some free-range. And she would have clicked right out of it all had she not glimpsed the glare of harsh orange flame in one thumbnail. The skin on her arms and neck prickled.

She opened the subfolder.

Up popped image after image of fire photography, arching flames that ranged from white to yellow to red. Most of the spitting twists of color were caught in poor focus—or maybe good focus, too good: she couldn't make out the location. Apollo U held bonfires often enough that it could have passed for one of those, but something didn't sit right about it. She felt like she recognized these flames, and she'd missed all the bonfires so far this year.

In the background of one…  _No. Holy shit, no._ She pushed away from the computer and clenched and unclenched her hands.

In the background of one fire, just barely in focus enough to be legible, hung a charred sign that read the partial word  _Cen_ , with the rest burned out.

Someone had taken photos of the Central University fire and put them on the faculty drive.


	17. Accusation

"And then she said, 'Please chill,'" Leo sighed, trying to sip from his coffee and accidentally splashing some of it onto his chin because he couldn't get rid of the goofy grin on his face. He swiped the dribble away and checked to make sure no one in the line for Nectar and Ambrosia had noticed.

Piper rolled her eyes and pulled her apron off over her head. "You know, I miss the days when caffeine put you to sleep instead of perking you up. You were quieter then." She tossed it onto the floor by her bookbag.

"Because I was passed out!"

"Nuance." Once she'd propped her feet up on the edge of his chair, she let her head hang back and her eyes close. "If you're gonna go on about everything she does, I'm gonna start just putting headphones in, and you can signal to me when you're done."

He snorted. "Yeah, okay, does that mean I can tune out during your 'OMG, Jason's biceps are bigger than my head' ramblings?"

She jerked her head up. "I've never said—!"

"'How often do you think he works out? His arms are as big as my head!'" gushed a recording from Leo's phone as he held it up for her to hear. The voice was definitely slurred, but definitely Piper's.

"I was  _plastered_!" she protested.

"Nuance," he countered with a grin. Thankfully, he clicked the Pause button before Drunk Piper finished the sentence that started with "Man, I'd _totally…"_ She sipped from her own cup and glanced around, looking for anyone she knew—and finding one. Jason stood across the way, in the line for the university post office. Inhaling sharply, she shifted with an insuppressible smile. Hmm… to wait for him to turn, or to call for him? If she shouted, he'd jerk around, color rising in his cheeks, blue eyes wide. And he'd hear her laughter and shoot her a pretend-angry look before coming over to—

In the seconds Piper spared in daydream, Reyna strode from the back hallway that led to a computer lab. Piper couldn't see her expression, but her hands were clenched tight at her sides, and she stormed directly to Jason and jerked him down by the shirt collar to hiss something in his ear. The smile crumbled off Piper's face; what had gone wrong?

"So, later, do you want to go to the bookstore and read random excerpts from paperback romance novels?" Leo suggested, but she was already on her feet and heading over to the pair of student gov besties.

She trotted to a stop beside them, the third point in a small triangle. "Hey" was as close as she came to pleasantries before she asked, "What happened?" She felt more than saw Leo come up behind her as well, and then he moved into her peripheral vision, making their triangle a lopsided rectangle.  _What's that called?_  she wondered briefly.  _There's a word. Oh, trapezoid._  Ah, the benefits of a college education.

Reyna stiffened up a little at the additional presences. The corners of Piper's mouth weighed down heavy with hurt: she thought they'd gotten past this. "It's… a student government issue," the president said, almost mechanically.

Before Piper could challenge that, Jason did. Leaning a hair closer to Reyna, he said in an undertone, "I think we should tell them. It concerns them."

"What concerns us?" Leo asked, trying and failing to play catchup. Piper couldn't blame him; she too felt like she was missing something critical.

Mixed emotions flashed through Reyna's eyes before she acquiesced. "Fine. But not here."

"When? Now?"

"I still have skips," Piper said. She only had one class left that afternoon, an hour from now, and she didn't like it anyway. "We can go hang out somewhere."

"Our apartment is closest," Jason said. Piper assumed he meant as compared to the hobbit house or Leo's work, though he didn't say as much. They rarely went anywhere else. "If you guys have time…"

"We have time," she assured him firmly. No way were those two getting out of spilling whatever weird secret was freaking them out.

Reyna adjusted her jacket, set her jaw, and nodded toward the doors. "Let's go, then."

* * *

"You found… photos?"

In the living room, all four of them nursed hot beverages that ranged from hot chocolate to chai to coffee, and the steam from Piper's mug warmed her cheek in a caress but did nothing for the cold feeling in her middle. She was having a little trouble processing what Jason and Reyna had just told her and Leo.

Reyna nodded once and looked away, solemn acknowledgement. "In a folder restricted to university faculty and staff, and a few students who do faculty-related work."

"Do you know who put them up?"

"No, I checked. They deleted the author information in the file properties." The president sipped from her extra-chocolaty drink, though she showed no sign of being affected by its healing warmth. "But it couldn't have been just anyone. The folder itself doesn't even show up in the computer system for the people who don't have access to it."

Leo swore faintly under his breath. Reyna and Jason looked like they agreed with him. "Maybe it was for journalism or something," he suggested, sounding like he wished more than believed this could be the case. "The campus newspaper—the  _Lightning Bolt_  or whatever the hell it's called—might have done an article on the fire. The pictures could have been for that. Right?"

"They could," Jason sighed, "but it's not likely. There's a whole archive on the university site for the journalism majors and newspaper people to upload and share the photos they use for articles. If it were that, they would have just used that site. This folder's more for storing stuff to use for classes."

"The profs only look at their own folders," Reyna explained further. "The staff who help them design courses only look at what they're working on at the moment. A lot of times, profs will have personal folders up in there to keep things they want to look at later that they might not need for anything right then."

Piper bit her knuckle. Those two knew a lot about the upper-level goings-on at Apollo U. "Is…?" she started, but then she trailed off guiltily.  _Is there any chance you know what's going on and just don't want to tell us?_  had been what she was thinking.  _Wow, am I a dickhead. If I can't trust these two, I can't trust anyone._

But Leo picked up on what she was thinking, and he had fewer qualms about voicing it. "You guys don't know  _anything_  about this?" he asked, folding his legs up so his knobby knees bumped against his chest. "You haven't heard anything at all? You get around. I'd be amazed if this comes as a total surprise."

Jason reddened, the set of his shoulders stiffening. "Are you accusing  _us_ —?"

For once it was Reyna who gave  _him_  a reassuring glance. "No," she said, ever calm, "that's not what he said."

Leo shifted in his seat at the latent defense, the rise in his body temperature practically tangible from where Piper sat. She'd be hearing all about that later.

"It's a fair question," Reyna continued quietly. "And you're right, partially."

Piper's heart sank.  _No. Tell me I was wrong_. "Partially?" she echoed, her voice faint in her own ears.

Jason remained hunched against the accusation, so Reyna said, "We knew about the fire."

"Everyone knew about the fire."

"No," said Reyna, "we were there."


	18. Betrayed

_Jason remained hunched against the accusation, so Reyna said, "We knew about the fire."_

" _Everyone knew about the fire."_

" _No," said Reyna, "we were there."_

* * *

Piper pressed her hand against her mouth against the sickened clenching of her throat. She did not want to vomit in her boyfriend's living room. Her  _boyfriend_ —she had thought he was different, she had thought him to be all the good in the world. But Central U had been the closest thing she'd had to a home in years, she and Leo both, and now he had something to do with…? Faintly, heartbrokenly, she whispered, "You…?"

"Not," Reyna finished, after much too long a pause, "that we were part of whatever—whoever—caused it."

"But you said—?"

"That we were there." Jason spoke finally. "But we came too late."

Letting her hand drop from her lips, Piper sat back. The urge to throw up had receded for the moment, replaced primarily by betrayed anger. "You aren't making sense.  _Someone_  needs to explain this  _now_. And not in…" She waved her hands in sarcastic circles to indicate illusions and magic. "…mysterious f–ing riddles. Just tell us what the hell's going on." Leo, uncharacteristically quiet, watched in agreement.

Reyna and Jason exchanged a look that fluctuated like an inaudible conversation, and then both sighed. "Okay, just… hear us out," said Jason, a slight flush splotching the angles of his face. He took a sip of his cider for strength and then started, shame dark in his eyes, "It started as a rivalry prank. At least that's what we heard. Some kids were going to go spray-paint your rock and, I don't know, throw Apollo banners around the fronts of buildings. Nothing dangerous, just jokes."

"'Jokes' like, say, the campus catching fire?" The sarcasm in Piper's voice slashed at him, and he winced.

Reyna took over the narrative. "We heard the group was going around ten at night, long after dark. Jason and I wanted to go too, to make sure they didn't overstep any boundaries. We figured it was safer to risk our reputations than to risk your safety." She looked Piper straight in the face, hurt evident in her expression and posture. "But they left earlier than that and didn't tell us."

"Once we realized no one else was at the assigned meeting place, she sent me on ahead to Central first," Jason jumped back in. "Just in case. She thought maybe they were late."

" _Hoped_  it more than thought it," Reyna sighed. "Stupid of me. Apollo students are more reliable than that."

"They're still  _college_  students," Piper told her, having been late to many campus meetings only to find they hadn't even started yet. Not that she'd heard enough yet to clear Jason and Reyna of guilt connected to the fire, but that fact specifically she knew for certain. Apollo University ran on a stricter schedule than Central had, but that didn't change the nature of the people in it. "Could've taken a nap and forgot to set their alarm."

"Well, they didn't," Reyna snapped. "I got a call from Jason. I couldn't even tell what he was saying, but I knew it was bad. I got there as fast as I could and called 911 on the way, but…" She blanched a little at the memory. "I don't know what I had expected. But not that."

"We tried to find the Apollo students who'd planned the prank, but they'd all disappeared," Jason said. "No one had been in the buildings on fire, thankfully. And by the time the fire department got there, they took care of corralling the students who came over from the dorms to see what was going on."

Piper waited, fully aware a glare was darkening her expression. There was more; there had to be. And hadn't they said anything to the police when they arrived?

They both hesitated, and then Reyna admitted quietly, "We left. We rationalized it—we didn't know anything for sure, we had nothing to do with it, we couldn't be of any help—but we ran. We fled. Only one of the student government people had heard anything about it, and he couldn't point a finger at us without outing himself too."

Piper had long stilled, horrified, and Leo wore the expression of a kicked puppy. She didn't know for sure if he was thinking the same thing she was, but she suspected so:  _How could they, the two epitomes of law and order, have run away without doing something? Trying harder? Do I even know them at all?_

"Not saying anything was a mistake," Jason emphasized, reaching out with his eyes cast down. "We regretted that, still regret it. But when we wanted to go forward with what we knew—" He broke off.

Reyna straightened, trying to regain her regality in spite of the shame darkening her face. "We were told there'd been an agreement made. That the presidents and councils in charge of both colleges had worked it out somehow. That it was better to… let it die."

Drawing in a shaky breath, Piper tried to put everything together. "So you  _knew_  that it was Apollo students who set the fire—"

"We didn't know that for certain."

"Well, you knew Apollo students were planning to vandalize Central the night of the fire," she snapped. "And you didn't  _say_  anything? To anyone?"

"We told my father," Jason told her. "Afterward, when we wanted to make up for leaving. Which was when he told us  _not_  to say anything because it was just correlation and it would all work out."

Her voice rose. "Sure. It would work out for  _you guys_. You didn't get burned out of the closest thing to—You got a bunch of new students! You probably  _made bank_  on that shit!"

Eyes wide, Jason flushed red. "Pipes, it wasn't like that—"

She glared at him for daring to use that nickname now, after what he'd just admitted. "And now, what, turns out it was someone higher up on the totem pole? What a f–ing surprise! It was probably all part of some big expansion plan!" Angry tears needled the backs of her eyes, and she blinked hard.

"That's the problem—" Reyna started, her voice too reasonable.

Piper knew what the problem was, though. The problem here. "No. You know what, I'm just… It's too much. You two knew all this, and you never said shit about it, and that's—" She couldn't think of the right words. Somewhere between  _not cool_  and  _the worst possible thing you could have lied-by-omission about_. Her head pounded as if someone had taken a jackhammer to the base of her skull, and she needed to get out. "I'm leaving." She pushed herself up off the couch, and a moment later Leo followed suit. She yanked on her jacket and snatched up her purse, and she didn't look back until she'd opened up the front door.

She let Leo leave first, and then she turned to look at Jason, her gaze hard, even though she could see the pain written all over his expression. "Don't call me," she said, and then she slammed out of the apartment.

She may have cried on the drive home.

* * *

Leo wasn't sure if Piper would show up to her work shift the next morning, but just in case she did, he made sure to get himself out of bed and to campus in time to be there for her. To his mild surprise, she did come, though her normal warm glow seemed to have been sapped. She wore a granny sweater (which she'd once described as "the clothes version of a hug") and none of her typical fun jewelry, and she didn't interact with any of her customers outside of the required minimum. Once she had a minute to spare, he gestured for her to come over to his seat at the bar.

"What?" she sighed, leaning over the counter.

"Have you heard from…?"

Her expression hardened. "No. And it's a good thing for him, too."

Leo chewed the inside of his cheek. As hurt and appalled as he'd been to hear all that stuff yesterday afternoon, he hadn't taken it as hard as she had, and he wondered how long it would take her to acknowledge the apologies and regret that had been woven into the explanation.  _Or if she_ _ **ever**_ _will,_  he thought unwillingly. Maybe it was that he wasn't dating either of the perceived traitors, or that she'd had more friends at Central than he had, but she seemed so much more betrayed than he felt. "Beauty queen," he started, "maybe…"

But he never got to finish whatever semi-diplomatic sentence he would have cobbled together. Hazel and Frank came up for coffee, and Piper had to attend to them. The pair noticed him and actually smiled and waved; he grinned and waved back, hoping the smile was wide enough to be convincing.

But the two-person line became a ten-person line, and Leo realized too soon that he needed to get to class. So he wiggled his fingers goodbye in Piper's direction, and halfheartedly she raised one hand from the espresso machine to do the same to him. He'd see her later. They didn't have lunch together today, but they did have World Myth, so—

 _World Myth._  He stopped in his tracks when he remembered. All four of them in a room together?  _Oh, shit._

For the next few hours he held out hope that maybe class would be canceled (he wouldn't have put it past Mr. D), but no, two o'clock rolled around and he had to walk into the Classroom of Potential Doom. He looked first to the front row, where he and the other three had been sitting for weeks now. Only Reyna and Jason sat there now. Piper was slouching in her original seat back in the third row, her feet up on the table and her face turned resolutely away from her (ex-?)boyfriend, no matter how many times he twisted to look back at her.

It wasn't much of an internal debate. Leo walked past the student gov pair and sat himself down beside his best friend. She bumped him with her shoulder appreciatively; although he couldn't see her expression through the short curtain of her hair, he knew she wasn't smiling. His chest ached for her.

As luck would have it, Mr. D announced that they would work in groups to discuss how far they'd gotten on their essays. Leo looked on instinct over to Jason and Reyna, the study buddies sent from God, and saw them looking back at him. Well, back in his direction. Jason clearly had eyes only for Piper, who'd buried her face in the textbook, but Reyna met Leo's gaze, something unreadable in her eyes. When it was clear Piper had no intention of joining them, though, the student gov pair turned back around to work with Annabeth and Percy, and Leo pulled a recent project out of his pocket to tinker with.

* * *

After class, Piper disappeared as soon as humanly possible, and Leo headed over to work, where cars provided zero drama and spoke a perfectly understandable language. With silent Beckendorf as his only human companion, he threw himself into the repairs, glad for the distraction. And maybe the break from thinking about the issue would help his brain come up with some way to fix it.

Leo had parked a now good-as-new motorcycle (and he may or may not have sat on it for an extra minute or two, just savoring the feeling of being badass) and was about to walk back inside when he caught a glimpse of Reyna running on the other side of the street. He jumped a little and peeked both ways, but no, she wasn't being chased. Based on the headphones in her ears and the athletic shorts that made her legs look incredible, she was practicing for… was it track or cross-country?  _Shit! Which one? I'm pretty sure they're not the same thing._ He groped for a memory but came up with nothing. Either she'd never mentioned it, or he'd forgotten.

He made a little fist of determination on the motorcycle seat.  _Next time I see her, I'll ask. And pray it's not creepy._

But the chance came sooner than expected: she turned at the end of the road and came back up on his side, passing in front of Hephaestus Auto Repair. From inside the lobby, his eyes widened and he stumbled toward the door in what barely passed for running. He burst out the door and called, "Hey,  _reina_!"

Reyna glanced his way and slowed down, following the sidewalk into the parking lot. He met her there, and despite his efforts to keep his eyes up at her face, he really couldn't help one appreciative glimpse of her long, powerful legs and the sweaty T-shirt with its sleeves hiked up around her shoulders. She pulled one headphone out and managed between heavy breaths, "Hey, what's up?" She looked slightly hesitant, as though this might be a trick after yesterday's disaster.

But it wasn't. He shrugged and grinned. "Nothing, just breadwinning," he joked, gesturing over his shoulder to his workplace. "You, uh, out for a run?"

She gave him a dry smile. "No," she corrected him, "I'm actually on my way over to dinner with the Queen of England. This is the dress code, right?" She pretended to look herself over. He looked anywhere else.

"Haha, oh, sarcasm, my old friend," he teased, still pretending to be interested in the stoplight. "No, seriously, is this practice, or fun, or preparing for the zombie apocalypse…?"

She laughed, the quiet noise roughened by exercise. "Fun, I guess. I can't think straight otherwise. Track doesn't start till spring."

Track! That was it.  _Log that away_. Finally he looked back at her, and noticed for the first time she was empty-handed. "Hey, do you want water or anything? We have, like, five million water bottles, I could totally send one with you if you want—"

Considering it, Reyna felt her pulse at her neck with two fingers and then shrugged agreeably. "If you've got one, sure. Don't go out of your way or anything. I need to get back to this. I have a whole other round to do still."

"No, no, no!" He held up his hands to keep her there. "Stay right here. Five seconds." He darted into the lobby, tugged one plastic water bottle out of its case, and trotted back outside and handed it to her. "Dehydration is the number one killer among college student runners."

She gave him a strange look as she unscrewed the lid. "I don't think that's an actual statistic, Leo."

His laugh caught in his throat. "Yeah, maybe not."

" _Definitely_  not."

He took a step backward, one hand placed melodramatically over his heart. "Geez, rub it in, why don't you?"

She didn't smile, quite, because she was downing some of the water, but her eyes crinkled a little, and that was good enough for him. He bounced on his toes.

"Okay if I take this with me?" she asked once she'd finished half the bottle.

"Yeah, of course." He waved an imaginary checkered flag for her to start running again.  _"¡Venga!"_ He meant it as  _hurry up_  or  _take care_ , but he couldn't help but hope that she would take its matador's meaning and come back.

She snorted a little, but then she bent her knees and headed off, long strides carrying her down the street at speeds that seemed near-superhuman to short, out-of-shape Leo. In awe he watched her go.

And in awe he watched her return, some twenty minutes later, still in her running clothes, with sweat darkening semi-circles under her chest, underarms, and back. She was only walking now, stretching as she went, and he half expected her to just keep going. But she stopped in front of him, hands on her hips.

"How—how was it?" he asked, trying to make words fit together into a sentence that wouldn't make him sound like a complete idiot.

She grinned, teeth white against her warm russet flush. "Good. I went eight miles."

"Oh, is that all?" he teased her. "You're going to go soft!" Was it the post-run endorphins making her so open with him, or something that could feasibly pass as a friendship between them, even with the current Piper-Jason split? He hoped, he  _prayed_  for the latter.

Laughing a little, she shook her head. "You caught me. That 5k next weekend is probably way out of my league. Damn it."

Had he heard her swear in front of him before? In conversation, when she actually knew he was there? He wasn't sure, but he liked it; it reassured him somehow. And now, even if he'd  _wanted_  to wipe the smile off his face, he wasn't sure he could have done it.

The wind picked up and they headed inside to get out of the sudden chill. Leo shifted awkwardly, unsure if Reyna would rather sit in the waiting room or hang in the workshop or just leave, and it was the pause of uncertainty that sucked the ease out of their demeanors. She tossed her now-empty plastic water bottle into the recycle bin and then leaned against the wall.

"Yesterday was shot to hell," she said bluntly.

Though his stomach warmed at the comfortable profanity, he winced. "Yeah, it could have gone better."

"I don't know about that," she said, half to herself. "We knew it was a risk to tell you, but better now than later."

"Piper will get over it eventually." He said this with little assurance; the beauty queen had been royally offended, past just irritation and into the realm of complete and utter betrayal. "Probably. I hope."

Reyna eyed him evenly and then shook her head. "I've tried to call her. She won't pick up. She won't answer my texts. And in class, she all but pretended we were invisible." The hurt flashed through her eyes and creased her forehead. "She doesn't want an explanation. We might as well have set the fire ourselves, and laughed while the campus burned."

He couldn't disagree. But he couldn't give up hope either. "Maybe if we all get together again, for dinner or something…"

"You really think she's going to agree to that? Without us resorting to lying or kidnapping?"

Sigh. "Not really, no."

Skimming her hands over her braid, Reyna glared pensively at nothing in particular. "Neither do I. But it has to happen. Jason's miserable, and besides, she has to know that we're going to keep digging."

Leo cocked his head. "You are?" He'd kind of assumed the two of them only admitted to knowing about the fire in order to get the guilt off their shoulders, not to lead up to more investigation.

"Of course," she said like it should have been obvious.  _Maybe it_ _ **should**_ _have been,_  he considered,  _knowing them_. "Now that we know there was more to this than just an accident or a prank gone wrong, we are morally obligated to follow this through. See what we can find."  _Even if it trashes our reputations and gets us in trouble_ , she didn't add but could have.

Leo hadn't thought he could respect Reyna more than he already did. Turned out he was wrong. A weird combination of fondness and pride expanded in his chest, and he didn't realize he was smiling until she gave him an odd look and motioned to her mouth. It took him a second ( _don't think about kissing her!_  he shouted at himself), but then he raised his fingers to his own and felt the curve there. "It's nice of you," he said by way of explanation. "To try to find out what's going on."

"It's our duty," she corrected him.

"Nah," he said, giving up on erasing his smile. "You're just awesome. And I'll see what I can do to bring Piper around."

"Thanks." She smiled back at him then, her dark eyes creasing up, and everything was worth it.


	19. Hopeful

"Are you going to eat anything?" Reyna asked from the kitchen, her fork hovering over a second serving of chili potatoes.

Jason, slouched in an armchair, the colors of his movie playing over his face, mumbled, "I'm not hungry. Thanks anyway."

Rolling her eyes toward the heavens, she helped herself to the food and then spooned some onto another plate, and she carried both back into the living room with her. She set the second plate on the table beside him. "Try. Not eating anything is bad for your metabolism. Besides—" Here she adopted a lighter tone, hoping to appeal to his apparent need to be teased. "—if you love me, you'll eat what I made for you."

He glanced at her in mild surprise. "Are you okay?" he asked.

Not the anticipated response. Her eyebrows jumped. "Other than worried about your three-day-long pity party, I'm fine. Why?"

"You just…" He shrugged. "I don't know. Sorry."

"I don't care if you're sorry. Just eat some dinner." She stared him down until he reached reluctantly for the fork.

_Dear Lord, I don't know how much more of this I can take._

* * *

Leo pounded on the front door of the hobbit house incessantly for three minutes until finally it opened, revealing Annabeth with her hair thrown up in a bun, wearing oversized pajamas and a dirty expression.

"What," snapped Annabeth. A dull pencil was sticking out of the bun, Leo noticed.

He tried to sidestep past her. "Is Piper still in bed?"

"As far as I know. I've been working," she said, the emphasis pointed on the last word. "Do you need something?"

"Yeah, thanks." He bolted around the corner before she could stop him. He heard her sigh irritably, mutter something under her breath, and then pad back to her work desk. Relieved, he slowed to a walk and let himself into Piper's small bedroom.

The lights all remained off, so the only illumination filtered through the tops of the curtain. Piper was a mound of thick blankets curled up on the bed, only the fringes of her hair visible against the pillow. She shifted, turning further from the muted sunlight, and he crept over to her and shook her lightly.

"Come on, time to get up," he said.

She mumbled unhappily and drew the corner of a green blanket over her face.

"Nuh-uh." He pulled it back off.

"Just stretching," she grumbled without opening her eyes.

"Right. Well, stretch when you're upright."

"Ungh."

Leo took a moment to appreciate the fact that he was the one in the responsible position right now. What miracles took place in the heavens to make this happen? "Well, you're burning daylight."

"Mm-hmm!" she mumbled brightly, or as brightly as you can mumble when you still weigh heavy with sleep.

"Ughh," he groaned. In frustration he smacked her lightly, but his hand caught the ridge of her hipbone and he hissed at the sudden pain. He moved his aim a few inches upward, to the softer part of her hip, and began to beat out a rhythm there. Not too hard but, hopefully, annoying enough to get her up on a Saturday morning.

His efforts did not go unrewarded. "Fine," she grumbled after thirty seconds, and then after a minute:  _"Fine!"_  She threw off the blanket and glared at him, her mouth all screwed up with distaste. "God, you could've let me have my one morning."

Right, the first Saturday since the beginning of the semester that she didn't have to work. Leo felt a little guilty, but not enough to let her disappear back under the sheets. In all likelihood, she would sleep all morning and grouch all afternoon if he let her. "Hey, that new superheroes movie is finally out. We should go see it. Come on."

The scowl softened into a tiny smirk. "And complain about where they changed from the original storylines?" she asked hopefully.

He beamed. "But of course!"

Piper extended her legs so they hung off the side of the bed, and then she slid onto the floor. To give her privacy while she dressed, Leo picked up her phone from the bedside table and scrolled through her contacts to make sure he was still listed as "The Super-Sized McShizzle."

"All right, let's go," she announced, slinging her purse over her shoulder and holding out one hand for her phone. He passed it to her with another bright smile.

He couldn't help but notice that despite their super-fun plans, the smile she returned didn't shine with the same strength it normally did.

* * *

As the pair was walking out of the theater, loudly debating the value of deviating from canon to meet modern cultural values, Leo's phone broke into an upbeat Korean/bad-Spanish song that Piper had given him and that he only knew a few key phrases of—"mamacita" and "ayayayayaaa." Sneakily he pulled it out of his pocket and peeked at the new text. From Reyna. His pulse jumped.

_Are you in town today?_

"Who's that ringtone?" Piper asked, sounding vaguely curious. The excitement of the debate was wearing off, dropping her back into her morose mood.

"Just a sec." Leo swiped out a quick response.  _At the mall with Piper rn. Why?_

Almost immediately he got a response that wasn't really an answer:  _Which mall?_

Just then, Piper jabbed him in the side with her elbow, too hard for just having ignored her. He looked up at her sharply, rubbing the injury, and he followed her gaze to find Jason and Reyna maybe thirty feet away, stopped in their tracks and staring right back at them. Reyna still held her phone in her hand, and her cheeks seemed a little darker than usual. Leo felt heat rush tingling to all his extremities at her mere presence.

Jason clearly had eyes only for Piper—puppy-dog eyes, specifically, which Leo knew quite well from personal experience—but she was having none of it. A blank expression shuttered over her face like light-blocking curtains, and when Jason took a step forward she pulled Leo into the closest store, which happened to be a clothing store for girls up to the age of five.

"Subtle," he said, shaking her grip off his wrist and glancing over his shoulder to see if the other two were still standing outside. He couldn't see them from here. "The sparkly pink tile floor will definitely convince them we were headed here."

She looked like she'd smelled old roadkill. "Sorry," she said, not sounding very sorry. "I just didn't want to deal with them right now."

How much trouble would he get himself into if he laid out his opinion right now? And would it be worth it? He scrunched up his nose to work up his courage, but before he could say anything, Piper sat down with a thump on a large glittery unicorn and heaved a choking sigh.

"I just don't  _get it."_

"Which part?" Leo asked carefully.

She raked a hand through her hair, making all the bits and tufts stick out at odd angles. A few of her braids, days old, were unraveling. "How they could first be okay with a big Apollo prank, and then not even try to help when they knew it had gone to he—heck!" she quickly corrected herself when a nearby parent shot her a death glare. "And now, what, they're out having a great time at the mall? Don't they care at all—?"

"Piper," Leo snapped. " _We_  are at the mall. And I know for a fact that  _you_  are not having a good time, minus the break for tearing apart DCNU. I think if you were feeling less torn-up and emotional, you would realize that they're probably trying to do the same thing we are—take a break from the sh—" He got the evil eye from the same parent. "I mean the cr—poop."

She looked at him, her eyebrows cinched angrily together and her eyes tinged red with held-back tears. "Are you taking their side?"

"I'm taking  _your_  side, because you're clearly a lot happier when it's the four of us together," he said, trying to soften his tone. "Or when it's just you and Jason together, though I'm the first to admit I try to avoid seeing that whenever possible. Cutesy and handsy, both of you. It's nasty."

She laughed in spite of herself. Good sign.

"Seriously though. You've been sad for days. I don't like it."

She sighed again, but the antagonism dissolved from the set of her shoulders. "Neither do I."

"Good, we agree." Leo leaned back against a shelf of Play-Doh and almost knocked it over. He scrambled to straighten up. " _So,_  I think you should give them another chance to apologize and explain. Maybe it'll make more sense the second time around."

But instead of agreeing right away, she shifted her weight and wrapped her arms around herself. "I… I don't know. Central was my  _home_ , more than anywhere else in the world. It feels like I'm betraying it."

Since losing his mom, Leo had yet to feel like he had a home, other than when he was spending time with his best friend, and now more than ever he wished he knew what she was feeling. It might have helped him help her. "I know," he said, almost wished. "But it wouldn't be betrayal to work together to find out what really happened, to try to put the arson people to justice. It'd be the best thing you could do for Central, right? And that's what Jason and Reyna are trying to do."

Piper combed her hair out of her eyes and considered this.

Leo didn't want to jinx it by holding his breath, so he only dug his fingertips into his scrawny biceps and waited.

"I guess it wouldn't hurt to think about it," she finally conceded.

* * *

Jason's huge blue eyes followed Piper into the store until she disappeared from view, and Reyna had to tug him to move along. Odds weren't good that the other two were coming out anytime soon, if the cold look on Piper's face was anything to go by. Reyna sent up a short prayer that Leo would be able to talk the barista into talking to her VP boyfriend. He was floundering in missing her.

"Come on," she said under her breath, and Jason stumbled along behind her, shoulders slumping.

"Do you think…?" he started, emotions raw on his sleeve. "Will she ever…?"

"She just needs time," she reassured him, and she hoped it wasn't a lie.

Jason stared at the sidewalk as they walked onward. "Can we go see Central?"

Pressing her lips together, Reyna nodded. They went through the bookstore and straight to her car, pulling out of the parking lot a little over the suggested speed limit, and she couldn't bring herself to care. They needed to do this. For Apollo University, for Central University.

For Piper. For Leo.

Her grip tightened on the steering wheel.

She pulled into the empty parking lot outside of Central's student center. It was four o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, which had two welcome benefits: the construction workers were off, and the sun was still high enough that they couldn't be accused of sneaking around.

The academic buildings that had burned (which was to say all of them) were in different states of reconstruction. The outside of the student center seemed the most finished, but still, plastic wrap covered the window spaces and Reyna could see through the sets of double doors that the inside remained empty and torn-up. Guilty nausea twisted in her gut; she tried to quell the feeling by reminding herself that she and Jason were going to make up for their mistake.

"Want to walk around?" asked a flushing Jason, reaching up to fidget with the collar of his shirt.  _Of course he feels the same,_ Reyna thought with a frown.  _Probably stronger. It's ridiculous that Piper can't see that. I hope Leo can get through to her._

So the two of them started to make their way around the campus, quiet as they took in the damage and recalled the night of the fire and tried to come up with workable ways to investigate.  _Has it been too long?_  Reyna wondered now, shoving her hands into her pockets. Her optimism, pitiful as it already was, seemed to be lowering with the sun.  _Maybe we wasted too much time. There might be nothing left for us to find now. No one to talk to. No one to listen._

As if he knew her thoughts, her best friend rested one warm hand on her shoulder. When she looked over at him, he had mustered up an encouraging smile. "We can do it," he told her. "Even if everything doesn't… turn out exactly how we want it."

At that moment, Reyna wasn't  _sure_  how she wanted it. This semester was changing things she had considered immutable. But she did know for certain she wanted to keep Jason happy if at all possible. Other things… other things she could sort out later.

"Seriously? Again?" complained a loud, familiar, female voice from down the line of buildings. Reyna and Jason looked away from each other and toward the irritated sound. Half-visible in shadows stood one short, lanky guy with untamed curls and a taller, curvy girl with choppy hair, her hands on her hips. Leo took a step into the light, and he looked right at Reyna, questions raising his eyebrows:  _How are you here too?_

Reyna met his gaze and squinted. "What are you doing here?" she called down, lifting her chin in a  _come here_  regal gesture, and obediently he trotted up toward her, towing Piper along with him. She could have sworn he was glowing as he neared; maybe it was the sunlight slowly turning orange.

"We wanted to look around." He turned to Piper, who was pretending not to be sneaking glances at Jason, who was openly sneaking glances at her. "To see if there was anything to see. Clues, y'know? Can I say that without sounding like Nancy Drew?"

"Nancy Drew was cool," Piper grumbled. "Don't hate."

"So why're  _you_  here?" Leo turned the question back to the student gov pair. His dark eyes locked on Reyna's, bright and hopeful, and a long minute she made herself look away.

"Same reason," Jason said for her, looking to Piper earnestly. "We wanted to start looking into this as soon as possible. Otherwise we might not be able to get anywhere. And since we take a lot of the responsibility for the initial investigation getting taken off the table, we're taking responsibility for getting it put back  _on_."

This time, Piper looked back at him, and though concern still crinkled her brow, the sadness in her eyes had mixed with hopeful forgiveness. "So you're really going to…?"

"Of course," Jason emphasized, blue eyes blazing.  _He really is the epitome of lawful good,_ Reyna thought fondly, with no trace of jealousy.

* * *

Piper hadn't wanted to put too much hope in the idea that they were really going to try to fix what they'd done wrong.  _We must have reached the limit, the end of their goodness,_ she'd rationalized.  _Even Jason can only go so far._  But now, hearing that she'd been mistaken and seeing the way he was looking at her… she took one step forward, wringing her hands together. She didn't say anything, only looked him over, and then quietly, "You never called me."

Hurt flickered in those damn eyes. Jason whispered, "You didn't want me to."

Piper swallowed, an uncertain noise she knew was audible. Her kaleidoscope eyes flickered along every plane of her boyfriend's face, memorizing what was beautiful and good and honest there, and then she tripped forward and threw herself into his arms, and she clung to him, savoring the feeling of his strong embrace. She heard Jason's breath catch in his throat, and then his content sigh warmed the side of her neck. A flame struck up in her stomach at the close contact, an ache for more, but she held back. She couldn't ruin this moment—though she wondered if that were even possible.

 _Together again,_  she thought almost as a prayer of thanks, closing her eyes.  _And righting wrongs. Nothing could be better._


	20. Underestimated

Unfortunately, the group's Nancy Drew impersonation had to be reserved for the weekends only.  _Weekdays_ , Reyna emphasized on Sunday night during their last-minute study time, had to go toward their schoolwork. Leo and Piper pretended to put up a big fuss that  _no_ , no one really cared if they did their homework, and what if they just went on a giant road trip instead? to which Reyna and Jason threatened to go on their  _own_  road trip and leave the other two to do the World Myth paper on their own. Leo and Piper melodramatically fell to the floor in protest, bewailing their misfortune.

It was perhaps not the most productive fifteen minutes they'd ever spent in the library.

Reyna, despite herself, loved it.

"Sometimes I think about what this semester would have been like if Piper and Jason didn't start going out," Leo said when the couple in question went to "get coffee": a not-subtle and not-convincing excuse for them to make out against a wall somewhere for twenty minutes.

Reyna laughed and closed her laptop. "More boring for us and less boring for you, I imagine."

He leaned back in his chair, swinging on one precarious back leg. "Probably," he agreed with a grin. "Definitely a lot less walking around with my eyes shut, trying to pretend my poor innocence wasn't forever tarnished."

" _Your_  innocence?" she teased. "I'm sure Campus Safety wouldn't believe that even existed."

"Wow. That hurts. Really." But then he eyed her with a smirky little grin, and she eyed him right back.

"What?" she asked, distrusting that expression.

"Oh," he said at a voice pitched too high with Innocence to actually be innocent, "I was just trying to decide what Jason meant."

Reyna's pulse jumped in her throat. "Jason? What did he say?" The one downside of lifelong best friends: they knew  _stories_ , all the embarrassing moments and flashes of stupidity. (And all the dark secrets too, although thankfully Leo sounded too joking to mean anything along those lines.) Though Jason hadn't  _been_  there for all of hers, he at the very least  _knew_  about them.

So what had he let slip?

Leaning further back still, Leo started to bounce, his grin too wide for any normal human being. "He mentioned a wolf at a zoo—"

And then, undone by the new stress, that one precarious chair leg went out from under him. Leo's eyes bulged and he yelped as he collapsed in a sudden heap. Reyna jumped to her feet at the crash and leaned around the table to see if he had survived intact.

He lay flat on his back, spread-eagle like he might continue to fall otherwise. The chair had bounced a few feet away and landed on its side.

"Doing okay?" she asked lightly.

He groaned. "I broke."

 _Looks perfectly fine to me._  "That'll teach you to bring up the zoo trip— _which_ ," she added on second thought, "may or may not have actually happened."

Leo blew a raspberry, and Reyna took that as a concession, so she extended one hand down to him. He stared at it for a long moment, then at her, and just before she awkwardly withdrew he reached up and took it. His long, slim fingers, warmer than anyone's had a right to be, intertwined with hers. Suddenly acutely aware of the contact, she gripped him back and tried to focus instead on the tense strength tugging at her biceps as she pulled him upright.

He stumbled to his feet and put out his other hand to brace himself against the wall… but he held on to her a moment too long, heat buzzing from his hand to hers, and when he finally released his grip, she felt his fingertips graze the inside of her palm. She jerked away, her fingers curling into her palm.

_What the hell is this?_

"Thanks," Leo said faintly, his cheeks darkening. "Sorry."

 _For what?_  "No problem," she replied with the same heat rushing to her own face. Abruptly she sat back down and averted her eyes. Hoping he couldn't see (and misinterpret) the motions, she shook out her right hand under the table and drummed her fingers together, trying to dispel the weird warm tingling.

_This…_

_I didn't sign up for this._

She'd have to tell him to turn off his magical heat powers. How else would she ever manage to get anything done?

* * *

"I don't think—ah!" Piper gasped and dissolved into giggles at the brush of Jason's lips against the most ticklish spot on her neck. He laughed, the breath soft on her skin, and kissed her lightly in the same place. She smacked him upside the head, then tugged the hair at the back of his head until he stopped and glanced up at her. "I don't think this is the best idea we've ever had," she whispered.

He ducked his head and leaned back against the couch they'd found in a dark corner of the student center. The fabric was printed with a hideous pattern, but Piper was the first to admit she wasn't looking at the design right now. Little pink splotches warmed Jason's razor-sharp cheekbones; his half-unbuttoned shirt was swirled from his broad shoulders. She smoothed the palm of her hand across his forehead, down the side of his neck, and paused at the curve of open skin at his shoulders.

Her eye caught the contrast of his pale to her natural tan, and she spread her fingers wider, just enjoying, considering. She wasn't much of an artist, but if she were, she thought she might like to draw something like this.

"Do you have a better idea?" he asked now, brushing her hair out of her face, warm and gentle.

 _Oh, do I._  Heat rushed to her face and hands and stomach, and she tensed against the alluring thoughts that overwhelmed her. Instead she forced herself back to coherency: "Well, I'd start with someplace we couldn't get walked in on at any second." She glanced over her shoulder at the staircase that led down to Nectar and Ambrosia. It was late enough now that not many people were out and about, and shadow cloaked the two of them, but they still ran the risk of being caught.

He followed her gaze, and the tinge of pink bloomed like ink across his face. "You're probably right," he acknowledged in a Vice Presidential tone—one that meant he had taken the suggestion a step farther than she meant it. He straightened up, and she awkwardly extricated herself from him, missing the fuller contact. "We should probably get that coffee now."

"Yeah," Piper sighed, and she half wondered if he felt the physical pull as intensely as she did. How could he just  _disengage_  like that if he did? "Probably."

* * *

Jason grew anxious when he realized his and Piper's two-month anniversary was that Friday, and Reyna heard of little else for the five days before it. Every spare moment it was  _Do you think she's expecting anything fancy?_  and  _Do you think she'll care if it's more low-key?_ and  _But we just got back together, what if I mess it up?_  Reyna could only reassure him so many times before she lost patience and told him that Piper would probably break up with him on the spot if he didn't have plans to fly her to the Sydney Opera House for a private performance. That shocked him back into something resembling sanity.

So Jason calmed down and pulled his plans together, and Reyna didn't have to hear any more about it. It was a win-win situation.

When the big day rolled around, Jason locked himself in the bathroom for an hour beforehand, and it was Reyna who answered the five-o'clock knock at the door. She opened it to Piper—who had truly outdone herself for whatever the night's plans were. The already lovely barista had actually put on a full face of makeup, foundation smoothing out tiny freckles, eyeliner making her kaleidoscope eyes pop. A backless scarlet dress showed off her hourglass figure at its best. With her hair twisted up into a tiny chignon, she looked positively classy.

"You look amazing," Reyna complimented her earnestly. Her jaw dropped into an open smile. "I… wow."

Piper flushed a little but beamed. "Thanks." She gave a little twirl, making the edge of the skirt flare out around her. "It has pockets!"

"What? Where? Show me." Reyna stepped closer and peered around. It didn't look like there was much room for pockets.

But no, she was wrong. Piper slid her hands into the tiny seams at her hips, and they disappeared up to her wrists.

" _Nice,"_  Reyna said, feeling more satisfaction from this one fashion device than she probably should have.

Thankfully, Piper seemed to feel the same way. "Right?"

Their eyes met, and Reyna accidentally laughed a little. Bonding over pockets.

The bathroom doorknob jiggled, and Jason finally emerged, fidgeting with the hem of his jacket sleeve and smoothing down his hair. Piper looked his way and inhaled sharply. They both turned red and stammered in turn about how good the other one looked. Reyna stepped back, happy to let them have their couple time.

They eventually collected themselves enough to get out the door. After the car was long out of sight, she fed the dogs, hefted her bookbag over her shoulder, and let herself out of the apartment as well. She sent a quick text— _leaving now_ —and pulled out of the parking lot. Her phone dinged with a response just as she parked at her destination:  _come right in!_

So she let herself in the back door of Hephaestus Auto Repair.

* * *

"Jason sometimes asks to watch chick flicks on Friday nights. He makes popcorn and everything." A laugh bubbled up in Reyna's throat, and though she choked it down, she still felt her lips curve up in a smile that came easily, too easily, especially given her company. She looked away. "You didn't hear that from me, though."

Leo poked his head out from under the car and grinned at her, upside-down. "What was the last one you guys watched?"

She snorted. "We rented  _A Walk to Remember_  from the library a couple weeks ago. It was awful."

"What?" he protested. "That's a classic! …Not that, you know, I've ever watched it."

 _Right, that's convincing._ Crossing her legs at the ankles, she rolled her eyes. "You know what else is a classic?  _Romeo and Juliet_. Doesn't mean it's any good."

"Okay, six people died, so that's not a fair comparison. You just hate romance."

"No, I just like plot," she countered.

Shaking his head, he pursed his lips, though that did little to cover up his grin, and he slid back under the car. They sat in warm silence for long enough that she went back to her take-home Business Management exam, but then he said something that reverberated against the metal.

She paused with her pen on the paper. "What'd you say?"

He coughed. More loudly he repeated, "I was just thinking we should watch a movie together and duke it out."

"Be forewarned, I write six-page-essay movie critiques."

"Yeah, well, you'll be lucky if I remember to show up on time. Which pretty much showcases our approaches to life. And homework."

She laughed in agreement and fingered the curling tail of her braid.  _He might think our differences are funny, but at least he seems to appreciate my methods. Being overly fastidious has worked for me most of the time, even though—_  "I didn't get far," she said, half to herself.

He peeked out at her. "On homework? No, you're way ahead, trust me."

"No, the, um, the wolf. At the zoo." She examined her fingernails, trying for a casual air. Unfortunately, interest brightened his eyes: he knew she was granting him the story she'd denied him on Sunday. "I petitioned. I made all these plans for sneaking her out and setting her free in the woods. I just forgot to take into account that…"

"That what?"

"That I was eight."

He cackled with amazed laughter. "Wow! Good job, little you."

She accepted the praise with a regal nod, even though she could feel heat crawling up her face at the embarrassing memory. "My sister told the zookeepers. For my own safety, apparently. They gave me the most  _condescending_  lecture, and then they sent us to the kids' playground." She clenched her jaw at the memory, trying to articulate exactly  _why_  this was something she didn't like people to know about. It seemed stupid in hindsight, and yet…  _I was trying to get something done, with as much authority as I could manage, and all they saw was a little kid messing around._

She  _hated_  being underestimated.

He scooted out and pulled himself to his feet, providing Reyna with a quick view of ropy biceps. "Psshh. You don't eff around, queenie. I'd like to see anyone try to lecture you now."

At that she smiled.

* * *

In the dark of evening, Jason parked his Honda outside the hobbit house, and for a second Piper just sat there and looked at him, appreciating the view of the best thing that had ever happened to her (maybe second best, behind Leo, but it was close). Jason smiled easily back at her, not rushing her to get out, and a mirroring smile formed on her own lips. He couldn't know how much she appreciated his existence; there was no way. And she wasn't sure she could put it in words, either, so that didn't stop her from leaning over to kiss him, with her seat belt digging into her shoulder.

Jason was always a gentleman, yet she felt his response—the way he leaned closer, tilting his chin for the closest angle, his fingers soft against the nape of her neck. He always let her dictate how far and fast they went, and so far she hadn't pressed for much. And she wanted to be sure how much he even wanted.

Tonight, though, her dress left her shoulders and back bare, and every line his fingertips traced felt burned there. Unfortunately, his suit jacket and button-down provided her no such leverage, and she tugged until he shrugged off the jacket.

It was his tongue that flicked out first, a pleasant surprise, and when he teased her mouth open, she fumbled to unbuckle her seat belt.

Pulling back just enough to breathe and relishing the little huff he gave at the loss, she looked him in the eye and tilted her head toward the house. "Wanna go in for a sec?"

She could see the gears in his head churning, trying to figure out where she was going with that suggestion, but it was late and his car was too small to be comfortable, so he swallowed and nodded.

Almost the second they were inside with the door closed, she pressed against him again, her heels giving her just enough height that he didn't have to lean down far to meet her. His lips burned against hers, the touch-and-go of their tongues ticklish, and the more of her torso pressed against his, the hotter the flame in her stomach grew. She ached, she  _ached_ …

"Piper," he mumbled against her mouth.

Her nails dug into his shoulders, and she made an unintentional noise at the back of her throat. Her mind felt too fuzzy to manage much coherent thought.

"Piper," he repeated, clearer this time, and somehow he had the presence of mind to break off the kiss. Her high cleared up just enough to focus on the uncomfortable look on his flushed face as he prompted, "Maybe we should have something to drink and talk for a second."

She took a step toward the kitchen, tugging him with her. "Cider? Or something harder?" She was pretty sure they had variants of moscato, vodka, maybe red wine above the fridge. If he needed to get a little buzzed, she wasn't going to blame him. Hell, she'd been halfway to plastered  _her_  first time—

"Water?" he suggested.

It was then that she realized why he wanted to talk. And it wouldn't end with sharing a bed.


	21. To See

Piper's fingers glanced longingly over a particularly good bottle of moscato— _ugh, I could use some of this right now_ —but she passed over it in favor of chamomile tea. As she boiled water on the stove, she tapped out an arrhythmic beat against the counter and considered the different directions this conversation could take them. Jason washed up the stack of dishes that had been left in the sink from yesterday, uncannily quiet and offering no hints.

Once the tea was poured and the dishes washed, the two of them picked up their steaming mugs and leaned against the counter. Piper's heart pounded anxious and heightened in her neck as she watched her boyfriend stare into his drink.

"Please don't take this the wrong way," he blurted finally, "but I have to tell you something that's been bothering me."

This, of course, was the worst possible way to start any conversation. Her pulse skyrocketed, and her grip around her mug tightened.  _Maybe I can sap some heat and magically turn it into a backbone._

He scratched the faded decal on the porcelain. "I know we've been… physical."

 _Oh, Lord._  Was he going to try sex ed? "I'm twenty-one years old," she broke in. "You don't have to give me the birds and the bees talk. I got it from, like, three of my dad's secretaries when I was twelve."

He flushed bright pink. "I wasn't—that's not what I meant."

"Well, what, then?"

"I just—we haven't exactly talked about it."

"You're right. Our mouths are usually otherwise engaged," she agreed sarcastically.

" _Piper!"_

He'd never raised his voice before, even though he sounded anxious rather than angry. She pressed her lips shut, tried to squelch her own unease, and let him talk.

Jason settled back down. "Sorry. I… we need to talk about it. This isn't…" He stared at his feet, dark pink. "…something I've done before."

 _Well, he's the epitome of lawful good, so I kind of figured, but…_ Piper shifted her weight. "Are you… embarrassed? Or nervous? Or—" A new option, one that hadn't occurred to her in their hotter moments, made her insides twist with disappointment. "—do you not want to? We won't have sex if you don't want to." If he was asexual or wanted to wait until marriage, she'd be disappointed, but she wouldn't try to force him to change.

He glanced up at her, a wry smile curving his lips and the stapler scar. "The problem isn't that I don't  _want_  to. I just need time, I think. To straighten a few things out first."

She exhaled lightly, unwilling to admit to the relief relaxing her shoulders.  _Does that make me a bad person?_  "Okay, let's talk. Like what?"

Swallowing audibly, Jason set his mug aside and jammed his hands into his pockets. "This is a big step."

"It's not a marriage proposal," she said quietly.

Averting his eyes, he breathed out something she couldn't make out, and then he said, "I love you."

She thought for a second she might drop her mug, hearing those words out loud coming from his mouth for the first time. She didn't, but she set it beside his just in case. "I love you too."

His eyes darted back to meet her gaze, and the blue hold felt intense, electric.

"And  _because_  I love you," she continued, feeling warm deep in her bones at having finally admitted it, "I don't want you to do something you're not comfortable with."

Jason gave a half-laugh smile of relief. "Thanks," he whispered, and it was enough.

* * *

Jason and Reyna's grapevine for prank-turned-fire gossip had started (or rather, ended) with a girl named Allison, a then-junior who'd worked a brief stint on student government. Piper had never met her, but Jason knew her. (Granted, Jason knew everyone.) So on Saturday, Jason hung out at Nectar and Ambrosia in wait for this girl who had five minutes to spare between study sessions.

But Allison appeared, as promised, although her tense shoulders and exhausted complexion showed she was unhappy to be there. And she only blanched further when Jason brought up the fire.

"We heard it from you first," Jason said as Piper handed the bedraggled senior a triple cappuccino.

Tired eyes flared open. "That was forever ago," she said shortly, which wasn't an answer. When they didn't move on, she continued, "I don't know. I didn't even end up going, I just heard it might be a thing."

"Who did you hear it from?" he asked, his patient tone almost parental. Disappointed Parental. And it did the trick.

The senior averted her eyes and swigged from the cappuccino. "A girl in my hall. She graduated last spring."

 _So she's long gone._  Piper mumbled a strong word under her breath.

Allison glanced at her. "But her boyfriend knew about it too. Ben Eighmey? He's a fifth-year senior this year. Go ask him." She backed away and, when they didn't follow, darted out the double doors into the cold.

Jason rubbed his eyes and let his fingertips drag at his cheeks. "All right, I know Eighmey. I'll shoot him an email, try to set something up. Somehow I was hoping this would be more direct."

Piper gave him a small smile and a triple shot. "Well, we're closer than we were five minutes ago. We'll get there." He downed the espresso in one quick swallow, and she made a face. "I have no idea how you drink that."

"Very carefully," he teased.

"Ooh! I saw that! More later?" Leo bounced up and, though he glanced around, he looked back to Jason and his empty shot cup with something like an impressed look on his face.

"More what?" Jason asked. "Coffee?"

Leo shook his head. "Nah, killing shots! I wanna go out tonight."

Piper scrunched up her shoulders. "Sorry, bro. I have a roommate date with Annabeth tonight."

"I have an away game," Jason said. "We probably won't get back till ten."

"Damn," said Leo, and he pulled out his phone just before Reyna swept in through the double doors. He looked up, and his whole expression lightened. "Queenie, hey! I was just about to text you!"

"Oh?" Reyna said, her eyebrows jumping a little. She leaned against the counter with a tiny smile.

Jason glanced at Piper in surprise; she gave him a  _well no duh_  look. She would have to ask Leo for the okay to catch him up later.

"Yeah! You wanna go out for drinks tonight?"

She stiffened, and her expression closed off. "No."

"Sure?" he prodded. "It—"

" _No,"_  she snapped, crossing her arms. "I don't drink. And I have to run errands today. Thanks anyway."

He backed off then, hands up, clearly reeling at the sharpness in her tone. "O-okay. That's cool. No worries."

Piper wanted to ask what had gotten Reyna's hackles up about just going out for drinks, but the president still had her arms crossed in a No Questions No Suggestions posture, and it was probably better for Leo's wellbeing to just move on. So she updated them on the tiny progress she and Jason had made, and then the four of them hit up the cafeteria for an early lunch. Leo didn't bring up the bar idea again, but he did tell his favorite bad jokes until Reyna uncrossed her arms and laughed. Piper beamed  _good work_  thoughts at him with her best-friends telepathy and hoped the goodwill would last.

* * *

Reyna all but collapsed into bed that night, barely even managing to pull all her limbs under the covers before she fell asleep. Her unusually pleasant dreams—vague but definitely involving a track meet and, for some reason, a human-size talking donut—began to clang at obscene volume, and she half–woke up and realized that the noise was her cell vibrating against her headboard. Sleep blurring her vision in the dark, she fumbled for the phone and eventually managed to extricate it and press Answer Call.

"What?" She yawned and swiped at one eye with the heel of her free hand.  _Someone had better be in the hospital._

"Hi, queenie," came Leo's too-loud voice, metallic through the line. He sounded like he was wearing that dumb grin, way too happy for… She checked the alarm clock. 1:03 am.  _Way_  too happy for 1:03 am.

And he certainly didn't sound like someone was in the hospital. "What d'you want?" she mumbled. "Try'na sleep."

A few people in the background were shouting incoherently. "But it's waaay more fun to be up," Leo insisted over them. "I been up for, like, I dunno, mosssa the day already. And I'm funner than you."

"No shit," she muttered. He was a little hard to understand, but she suspected that  _mosssa_  was meant to be  _most of_.

"Geeez, Reyna," he sighed. "You're so…"

Subconsciously she held her breath. This was it. He'd stayed up long enough he realized what a shit friend she was.

"… _pretty_ ," he finished with a sigh. "Ssso, ssso pretty."

She exhaled shortly, wary. She knew she was pretty, but it certainly didn't merit a middle-of-the-night phone call. And on top of being too loud, he was slurring. Realization kicked her in the gut. She sat up straighter, wiping the sleep from her eyes. "Leo, are you  _drunk?"_

Leo laughed. Too hard. "What?" he asked when he'd caught his breath. "Nooo. No way, the Super-Sized McShiz can  _totes_  hold his liquor. Hey!" He made an  _unh_  noise that sounded like it might have been accompanying a waving gesture—waving over another glass.

"How many have you had?" she demanded.

Leo inhaled and began to count, his finger making a  _tink_  sound against each glass. She could hear it even over the phone. "One, two, thhhreee, four…" The  _tink_ ing went on for a little while longer, but he stopped counting out loud, and when he started again he went straight from eight to eleven. Then he realized his mistake and starting giggling.

He was definitely drunk.

She sighed even as she swung her feet onto the floor. "Where are you?" There was no way he needed to even touch a steering wheel in that state.

"Uh… the place on Conant. Sign says all the good stuff."

All the information was on a sign he hadn't read? Ugh. That was helpful. Well, she knew where Conant was (unfortunately—it was the run-down part of the city), so she could get that far, at least. She pulled on a purple AU sweatshirt and grabbed her purse and keys from the table on her way out the door. "Why didn't you call Piper?" she asked, in an effort to keep him sentient. "Or Jason?" Surely she hadn't been his first thought.

She hadn't been. "Piper di'n't pick up," he complained. "Don't know where she went."

"Jason, then."

"I like you better than Jason," he said, sounding extremely pleased with himself.

Ignoring this, Reyna let herself into her car and twisted the key in the ignition. "I'm coming to get you," she said firmly. "You stay where you are."

"Okay," he said, agreeably enough. "You gonna come have some too?"

 _ **Hell**_ _no,_  she thought, but she made a noncommittal grunt.

Half an hour later, she pulled onto Conant Street, which looked even crappier in the off-white glare of street lights. Traffic was pretty much nonexistent at this hour, so she drove a little under the speed limit to look on both sides of the road for the potential destination. Nothing really popped out at her, and then she caught sight of the neon margarita glass. When she parallel-parked on the curb, another neon sign in the window flashed, "All the Good Stuff!"

Leo's comment made a little more sense now.

Reyna locked her car and strode around the hood and into the bar, clenching her jaw at the immediate cacophony. Outdated overhead music, loud conversations, the stench of alcohol and body odor. White-knuckled hands clenched bottles in various states of emptiness. As she made her way to the main line of bar seating, one man wolf-whistled, and multiple people stumbled into her, jostled her. Too much drinking, too much touching. Anxious, high-intensity emotions threatened to cloud her mind, but she tried to focus on her task: retrieve Leo.

Reyna didn't come into this part of the city often (or at all, if she could help it), so she did have the mixed blessing of knowing no one here. It made it that much easier to pick out a familiar face. Oh, scratch that. She did recognize one pair of Central transfers. One of the Stolls was drunkenly groping Katie Gardner against the wall, and Katie was groping back. Great.

Glancing away from the couple, she noticed a familiar head of curls bobbing in front of one of the TVs. She strode toward him and grasped him by the shoulder, making him look up at her and beam sloppily.

"Want one?" he asked, gesturing to the rows of bottles behind the bartender, but Reyna only wanted to get out of here.

"We're leaving five minutes ago," she told him, hooking one hand under his arm and helping him off the stool.

"That's not even possible," he laughed as she pulled a few bills from his wallet and slapped them onto the counter. The bartender nodded once at her, and she steered Leo around to head toward the door. He had to lean most of his weight on her, but he wasn't heavy, and they made it out onto the sidewalk.

"What were you even doing there, anyway?" she asked, peering around for Festus. The car should have stood out easily, but she couldn't seem to find it.

"I was… in the area," he said, sticking his lower lip out like he saw a lecture coming.

And he wasn't wrong. "What? Why? None of us live anywhere near here," she snapped, giving up on finding the thing. He must have parked elsewhere.

"Well,  _youuu_  don't," he countered, with some negative emotion in his tone that she couldn't quite identify. Bitterness? Jealousy? Generic irritation?

He started to walk off, and she jogged to catch up the few feet and cut him off. "Hey," she said, "we need to go."

"I  _am_  going."

"We can't walk around this part of town at night."

"I walked here."

"Well, that was stupid," she said flatly. "Luckily for you, I drove, so we can take my car."

He gasped, his eyebrows jumping three miles up his face as he beamed. "We can drive in your car?"

"I can drive. You can ride shotgun."

This detail didn't seem to bother him much; he only mumbled "I love your car!" to himself and followed her to the vehicle in question. She unlocked it, opened the door for him, and then made sure he got himself all the way in before she shut it and went around to the driver's side.

She had just pulled out onto the road when he informed her, "I get carsick sometimes."

"Not this time," she warned him, but he was already looking a little waxy. "Keep your mouth shut. Where am I taking you?"

"I thought you said to keep my mouth shut," he said through pressed-shut lips.

She groaned. "Just tell me where to go."

He waved one hand for her to turn ahead. After a moment, he asked, "How come you never drink, Reyyyna?"

"Mouth closed," she ordered. And then, even knowing he probably wouldn't remember any of this, she answered, "Because drinking turns people into idiots or…" Her voice caught. She forced herself to focus on the road. "…Or worse. And I'd rather not even start."

"Plus hangovers are a bitch," Leo mused, oblivious. But this thought must have been too much for his drunken carsickness, because he clapped one hand over his mouth. "Pull over," he managed.

Reyna pulled onto the shoulder just in time for Leo to fumble his way out and vomit, his whole body convulsing in the heave. The stuff splattered audibly on the pavement. Ugh, the sour smell turned Reyna's own stomach, but she pressed her lips together until the urge to add to the mess faded.  _Please, God, let him have missed my Mustang,_  she prayed.

Leo convulsed a few more times but brought up only bile, and after the final time he spat and got back in the car, his face twisted up at the lingering taste. Empathy hurt her heart as she looked him over; throwing up was vile.

"How much farther?" she asked him softly.

He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and moaned unhappily as he gestured ahead.

She glanced in that direction, but she could only see more of the grass-and-dirt patchwork and, a few yards away, something that looked like it might be a shed. "Further down this street?"

"'S right there," he mumbled.

"Are you sure…?" she started, but a sinking feeling was growing in her gut. She looked again, harder this time.

What she had thought was a large shed might, by a stretch of the imagination, pass as a tiny house. The overgrown grass around it barely covered the dirt it sat on. The flat roof needed some shingles replaced, and the faded paint was chipping just about everywhere. The only signs that anyone had visited in the last decade were the tire tracks packing down the dirt driveway and the ultra-high-tech lock and security system that decorated the front door.

"Oh, Leo," she sighed. "Don't tell me."

But Leo was already out of the car and tromping through the grass-dirt patchwork. She followed him to the front step, catching up as he began to fumble with his key ring. She recognized his keys for work, Festus, Katoptris… and the bronze one she'd never seen him use. It was this key that he shoved at the center lock (unsuccessfully, due to his being the farthest thing from sober) as he tapped out some code and pressed his fingerprint to a scanner.

 _Who's really going to break into this house?_ she wondered sadly.

Eventually he got his key in the lock, and he twisted it and shouldered the door open. He went in without saying anything to her, and though she wasn't sure if she was allowed in, she figured she should follow just in case he puked again or hurt himself.

She stepped through the doorway and found the interior slightly less horrific than the exterior. The walls sat bare but mostly clean, and the minimal furniture seemed to primarily function as storage for his works-in-progress, based on the tools and pieces piled on them. A couple of textbooks and notebooks lay spread out on the kitchen counter, looking for all the world like he might actually have been reading them at some point.

Leo stumbled toward the bathroom. "Gotta shower," he muttered, pulling off his shirt a second before Reyna knew to avert her eyes, and she didn't quite regret the view of skinny-repair-boy muscles she got before she looked away.

Deciding she couldn't leave in good conscience, she glanced around for somewhere to perch until he'd washed off the vomit and the bar smell. The furniture was all pretty solidly taken up by mechanical stuff she didn't want to mess with, so she chose to stack his school things in one corner of the counter and jumped up to sit where they'd been. She considered looking in his fridge to see if he had anything to eat or drink, but what she might find (or  _not_  find) would probably only upset her more, so she opted to just sit.

 _How has he managed to keep this hellhole a secret from everyone?_ she wondered, almost impressed even as she was hurt and worried. She had known his mailing address was a diversion, but for no one to have ever come over, or dropped him off at home, or even asked to drive past it…  _I guess you only see what you want to._

Tonight she saw the truth whether she liked it or not.


	22. Emotional Aftermath

Reyna didn't intend to spend the night, but Leo's shower took longer than expected, and she dozed off against the wall. Used to sleeping in odd positions thanks to late nights with student gov, she didn't slip; thanks to years of paranoia and distrust, she jerked awake when he shuffled back into the kitchen—or more specifically, the three square feet of floor that featured a microwave, a '90s oven, and a refrigerator crammed into the tiny spare wall space. She relaxed when she saw it was only him, but he looked worse, more tired, less buzzed.

"You should have a cup of water and go to bed," she told him, slipping off the counter and reaching out one hand in case he stumbled.

Ever obedient, he fumbled through the cabinets for a cup and jammed it under the faucet, which sputtered some water through a mineral-whitened spout. She almost retracted the suggestion, but then he downed it and dropped the empty cup into the half-sink.

He mumbled something at her that she couldn't understand, so she just nodded and reminded him, "Get some sleep."

This was the wrong answer, apparently. He made the effort to look her in the eye. (His aim was a little off, but it was the thought that counted.) "You driving home?"

She pressed her lips together and considered her options. On one hand, exhaustion weighed heavy on her eyelids and limbs, and Leo might need help recovering in the morning. She could camp out here. On the other, this shed had no space to spare, and she didn't want to stay out here any longer than she had to; it made her uneasy. "Yeah, I think it'd be best if I went on home."

He reached out for her hand and caught her by the sleeve. She shook him off: she didn't want to make anything out of this situation other than what it was.

"Stayyyy," he whined.

 _I am not going to fall for it._ And yet she hesitated.

He caught the pause and motioned for her to follow her around the corner. Did he have an actual bedroom? It didn't seem like there was enough square-footage for one. But then he opened the pantry, and oh, no pantry, just a sleeping bag on the floor and a rickety dresser that looked like he'd thrown it together from spare parts he'd found beside a dumpster.

"Don't you have a  _bed?"_  she asked softly, her voice cracking on the last word.

"Mattresses are expensive," he said like that should have been obvious. "You can sleep here. I'll take the couch. Some of the stuff on it is… not tested yet."

 _Maybe neither of us should be sleeping here_. Reyna stepped back into the kitchen area, and he followed. "Look," she said, in her best Patient Older-Sister You're-Drunk-I-Can-Convince-You-Of-Anything voice, "why don't you come back to the apartment with me? Our couch is empty, and you could sleep on it without having to worry about being attacked by your own inventions." And that way she could actually help him out of his tremendous hangover, too.

Leo pouted his lips. "No, 'cause then Jason'll be all, 'When did you get here?' and he'll think I broke in, and I'll have to go to jail, and then I can't pay rent or tuition and I'll be homeless. Also in jail."

"As flawless as that logic is, I really think it'll be okay. Come on."

He continued to make his pouty face, but he didn't protest anymore and he let her help him out the door back to the car. (She grabbed a plastic bag on the way out. Just in case.) He fell asleep during the drive, so when they got there, she just hefted him over her bag and set him on the sofa, pulling an afghan over him before stumbling to her own room.

She hesitated, her fingers glancing around the curves of the knob, before she locked her door behind her.

* * *

Jason's rattling woke her in the morning, the too-bright sounds of china and hinges. Despite the midnight trip and the fact that her clock only read 8:23, she dragged herself out of bed and into the kitchen, throwing her hair back into a casual braid as she went. He smiled a good morning at her before glancing at the small form snoring on their sofa. "Is that Leo?" he asked carefully.

She took a mug from him and poured herself some coffee. "Yes."

He crinkled his fingers uncertainly. The question was clear:  _What's he doing here?_  But Jason was too hospitable to kick the mechanic out and certainly too polite to suggest either that he'd let himself in or that Reyna had brought him with ulterior motives. So she answered without needing to be asked.

"He got slammed last night," she said as she drowned the coffee in mocha creamer. "Drunk-dialed me. I drove him… home… and then I brought him back here."

Jason's lips parted in surprise. He knew even less than she had. "Wait, you saw where he lives?"

She met his gaze and didn't smile. "Yes," she repeated.

"And…?"

She shrugged one shoulder at the couch. "I'll let him explain when he wakes up."

So instead Jason and Reyna talked over their bowls of cereal for a leisurely hour, a warm hour in which she was selfishly glad to have him to herself. It had been too long since they spent some best-friends time together, just the two of them. She was laughing at his impression of himself fumbling through football practice when a godforsaken groan came from the sofa. Reyna looked over in time to see the afghan shift, and Leo slouched up into a sitting position.

She grimaced to hide the laughter that rose in her throat. He wore an unfortunate blend of sleep and hangover. His skin was creased from the lines in the couch fabric, and nausea bleached his normally vibrant tan. Shadows dragged under his eyes.

"Ugh," he said.

"Morning, sunshine," Reyna replied. Jason shot her a surprised look that she ignored. They were friends; she could tease a friend. Right?

Leo looked around and rubbed one hand over his face. "What happened last night?"

Jason raised his eyebrows at Reyna, who primly sipped from her orange juice. "Why don't you come have something decent to eat," she suggested, "and then you can share with the class why you're living in a shed and wouldn't tell anyone."

Leo, if it was possible, blanched further.

* * *

Once he got some eggs and coffee into his system and looked less likely to vomit, she nailed him with a You're Not Getting Out Of This One look. He suddenly became enthralled with his hands on the table.

"Leo Valdez," she said sharply.

" _Reina,"_  he whined without looking up.

"Jason!" Jason muttered into his shoulder. Reyna shot him a dirty look; he pressed his lips together against a grin that dimpled his cheeks.

"I'm serious," she said to Leo in a slightly kinder tone. "Explain."

"Can it wait till after my hangover goes away?"

"No. Now."

He sucked on his upper lip. "You won't understand."

"Try us," Jason said.

Leo clenched his hands into fists and then watched the tendons move as he stretched his fingers out as far as he could. Reyna wondered if he was giving them the silent treatment, but finally he started, "I lived in foster homes after my mom died. It was new home, get in trouble, back into the system, new home, get in trouble, new home. Eventually I just started running away—it hurt a little less that way."

Reyna's brow tightened with sympathy, but she said nothing. She didn't want to stem the flow of information by scaring him back into silence.

"I didn't have anyone until I met Piper. Once I graduated high school, I was so glad I wouldn't have to deal with the moving around anymore, at least. No more fake families that just wanted state money. I'd saved up some money working and made a decent scholarship with my shop stuff, so I got through my first year at Central. And for five minutes it looked like things were actually going okay." He snorted and looked away from his hands, unusual bitterness clouding his expression.

 _Oh, God._  Reyna sucked in a pained breath. "And then… the fire."

"And then the fire," he agreed flatly. "I had to go  _somewhere_. Piper moved into the hobbit house with Annabeth, and they offered to have me too, but there's no room there. I'd've been living out of my car. Apollo's discount for transfers went toward tuition, not room and board, and it's not like I could live on campus over the summer."

"You could have lived with us," Jason protested.

"I didn't even know you then!"

The blond frowned in reluctant acknowledgement.

Leo tried to shrug this whole story off, but the too-casual action just made him come across more uptight. "It's a place to sleep. There's not enough room to have anyone over, so…"

"Oh, don't even," Reyna scolded him.

He glanced at her in mild surprise.

"You went out of your way to keep it a secret. That's not just 'oh, we can't hang out there today.' That's… avoidance. Lying by omission. You didn't trust us."

His Adam's apple bobbed. "I didn't want you to worry about me."

"You were being secretive and suspicious!" she snapped, desperate to convey the clamoring, roiling emotions. To explain them to him, to herself. "I thought you were  _homeless!_  We worried either way—the least you could have done was say,  _no worries, I'm not living under a_ _ **bridge**_ _or anything_!"

His eyebrows jumped as a blush prickled over his tawny skin. "I… I didn't think…"

"No, obviously not." She was suddenly aware that she'd risen a few inches from her chair, and she sank back into the seat.

Jason was watching her with a sort of pleased fondness creasing his eyes, and Leo looked like he was memorizing her face when he admitted, "I'm not really used to it, I guess. Having people worry. I'm sorry."

She curled her fingers into her palms and sighed. Lowering her voice, she softened. "All I'm saying is that you can trust us. You know that, right?"

"Yeah," he said softly, in a way that made the heat in her stomach flare. "Yeah, I do."

"…Good." Reyna pressed her lips together, hoping they'd settled the issue.

But Jason jerked his arms off the table and blurted, "Hey, did you guys tell Piper any of this yet?"

Reyna started. "Shit. No, it was all in the last eight hours."

So they called Piper over, and Leo repeated his explanation of why he hid the fact that he was living in a craphole, and Piper took it about as well as any of them expected: she got angry-teary and hugged him and demanded why he hadn't just told her. Sobering up, he gave her a new line of reasoning on top of everything else: "I didn't—I  _don't_ —want your pity."

Piper stared. Jason stared. Reyna wondered what on earth they'd done to make him so afraid of them. "Our pity?"

He stared at the tabletop, brow furrowed into deep grooves. "You guys rent an apartment, a house, and don't think twice about it. Piper could ask her dad for the state of California if she wanted to, and judging by his multiple sports cars, President Grace's bank account isn't doing too bad either." His jaw clenched, and Reyna thought she saw his eyes redden with tears, but none spilled. "I work more than I go to class just to pay my  _bills_  every week." His voice cracked on the word.

Piper's breath caught on a new round of tears. Reyna herself felt a burning in her throat that wouldn't quite fade.  _Living paycheck to shitty paycheck is stressful enough without feeling like you have to keep it a secret. And feeling alone and subpar…_  It had been hard when Hylla moved away, and would have been harder still if she hadn't had Jason to rely on. Keeping everything bottled up inside would have eaten her up, and she could only imagine how it must have corroded Leo as well.

She blinked out of her thoughts and realized that she'd unintentionally tuned out for a moment. Now Piper was explosively protesting the idea that any of them would ever look down on another. Leo's near tears had receded into a more comfortable emotion: relieved amusement.

"None of us would have thought  _any less_  of you—especially not me!" she exclaimed, braids swirling in a shake of her head. Her hands flew out and about, clenching and unclenching as she processed the new information. "If you ever need  _anything_ , you ask! No questions! We will not judge!"

"I've really, I swear I get it now," Leo joked, pretending to duck away from her, but she yanked on his hair and he yelped.

"It's not funny!"

"I know!" He scrubbed at the sore spot and scowled.

Piper huffed at him and then turned toward Reyna to say, more calmly, "Thanks for telling us."

"Wasn't her secret to tell," Leo muttered.

Piper smacked him without looking. Jason snorted.

"No," Reyna conceded, "in fairness, he has a point. It  _wasn't_  my secret." A beat passed as the other three waited for the  _but_. " _But_ I thought it was in his best interests to tell." She looked to the one whose boundaries she'd taken over. "I should have talked to you first. I'm sorry."

Leo's dark eyes met hers and held them for a good seven seconds before softening. "It's okay," he reassured her.

She let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.


	23. Truth

_Truth never yet fell dead in the streets… –Theodore Parker_

* * *

Reyna parked her Mustang outside Hephaestus Auto Repair and then let herself in while Leo pulled it inside the garage. She had brought her bag of schoolwork with her, and she'd intended to be productive, but that idea got shot to hell when she caught the first sight of her mechanic—an unexpected heat clenched in her stomach. His ratty tank top provided too good a view of his lean arms, all ropy muscles. Blue veins threaded under his tawny skin, thin but visible. Long fingers, sharp angles in shadow. The brief peek from The Night Of The Bar had neglected all the details she was now drinking in.

He even had shoulder dimples. What kind of cruel God put  _that_  in front of her when she was trying to work?

But she summoned her self-control, took out her laptop, and pulled up her file for the World Myth paper, the deadline for which was drawing ever closer. The occasional glances she allowed herself were just positive reinforcement for her hard work… or at least that was what she told herself. She was definitely not thinking about running her hands through his stupidly overgrown curls.

"It doesn't smell in here, does it?" he asked her, pausing before he jumped into his work. "All the gas and oil and sweat crammed into bad ventilation…"

She sniffed, but she only caught the barest tang of rust. She shrugged. "If it does, I can't smell it."  _Anymore_ , she neglected to add. She remembered the traumatic first experience of Leo's workplace.  _Clearly I've been spending too much time here if I can't pick out the stink._ A smile curled the ends of her lips at the thought.

"Oh, okay, good." He grinned, relief evident in the huge dimples slicing his cheeks in half. Her toes curled, and the heat that bloomed invisibly in her cheeks reminded her to focus on her work. Her fingertips clicked over the keyboard until he again distracted her, this time with the promising beginning of a story: "Ohhh my god,  _so—_ did I tell you about when Piper and I started a fight in the Grand Canyon?"

A surprised laugh bubbled in her throat. The words  _Sorry, I'm working_  didn't even enter her mind. "No. How did you manage  _that?"_

Beaming at her interest, Leo launched into a convoluted tale from the Wilderness School years. Apparently Piper had taken even less shit back then and responded to a few racist remarks with less than 100 percent forgiveness. By the time he finished his dramatic retelling, Reyna's jaw ached from laughter.

Eventually, though, he remembered that they were both supposed to be working. "Sorry. I should probably let you get back to death and despair—" He gestured to her laptop. "—so I can change your oil."

"Probably a good idea," she agreed. "But I'm running out of ways to say that Rome won the war against Greece."

" _Did_  they win the war against Greece?" Leo pondered with his head inside her car. "What  _is_  winning?"

She rolled her eyes. "You need a new joke."

He cast her a horrified look. "Ughhhh, no, please, I'm begging you. My limited sense of humor is all I have in this world."

"Too bad there's no repair shop for that," she teased. "What would they call that here—name it after the muse of comedy?" Everything in this town was named after mythology; someone must have thought it was clever.

"Nah," Leo countered, "the god of murder. I've had several threats already, usually along the lines of 'if you tell me that pun again, I'm gonna throw you off a cliff.'"

"Clearly they were exaggerating. There aren't any cliffs around here."

"Oh, they sounded pissed enough to go find one." He sounded pleased. "At least  _you_  like my jokes."

Well, he wasn't wrong, but… "Don't test me," she warned, miming throwing him off a cliff. The smile that wouldn't go away betrayed her, though, and he went back to his work with an identically idiotic grin on his face.

After briefly appreciating his shoulder muscles, she went back to her work too, staring at her half-finished paper and its rough outline. She needed a few new sources from the library, but she didn't particularly want to leave to get them, so here she stayed.  _I'll just leave this alone for a bit, let it percolate,_  she decided, and she closed her laptop and pulled out her Business Management textbook. She read the assigned chapter, penned some notes in the margins, and then dropped it back into her bag with a colossal sigh. She so much preferred hands-on experience to theory and words on paper.

 _Hands-on…_  Reyna bit her lip and let her eyes travel over her… classmate, mechanic, friend, whatever Leo was to her now. Her fingers curled and her nails dug into her palms, and the sharp pain barely cut through the warm tingling.  _When did this start? Can I turn it off?_ She'd spent too long pining over one guy to willingly fall into the same trap with another. She valued Leo's friendship too much to stain it with unrequited feelings. Yet there the feelings were, fond and strong and stupidly unwilling to disappear.

And she wanted to  _touch._

"Is there a hole in my clothes,  _reina_?" Leo asked suddenly, twisting around to check himself. "You're, uh, kinda staring."

Shit, she'd been caught. Not for the first time, she was glad that the darkness of her complexion hid blushes. "No, you're fine," she said in her most casual voice. "I was just thinking what a useful skill it is. Being able to invent stuff and fix everything."  _Nailed it._  She boxed off the warmth and focused on their friendly conversation.

"Wish I could fix people," Leo told her, only half joking. "Or have someone fix me. Just fiddle for an hour and get rid of all the problems, you know? Cars are easy that way."

"You can't fix a person," Reyna said, and as she said it she realized how true it was. "You can love them and try to help them fix themselves, but you can't fix them."

"Gee, thanks for the inspiring pep talk," he teased, but she was piecing together things in her head and they were finally making conscious sense, so she rushed on:

"No, listen, this has taken me forever to realize. It's literally impossible. You couldn't do it if you wanted to. It's not  _you,_  and it's not your job _._  It has to come from  _them_ , deep in the hardest-to-reach part of their heart, or it won't  _stick_." She took in a deep breath. "It won't be real."

He set down his wrench and stared at her.

She looked away. "Sorry, too deep?" But something in her chest still stung with the afterglow of her realization.

"No, I was thinking…" He laughed wryly. "It seems dumb now, but for the longest time I felt like having a girlfriend would fix me. I wouldn't have actually said that out loud, but it felt true. Like, 'Oh, this girl thinks I'm hot, now everything will be okay.' When really there were other issues I needed to deal with, and I couldn't see them until I'd gotten okay with being single."

She nodded. In the darkest times after Puerto Rico, she'd felt like if Jason fell in love with her, she'd know there was more to her than some twisted pedophile's evil fantasy. That she was an attractive  _person_. And it wasn't until she let go of the idea of Jason fixing her that she found she could become whole again.

They both fell silent, listening to the clanking noises of car repairs and the metallic reverb of the music's bass against the iPod speaker. She settled back into her seat and refocused on her paper, but part of her mind niggled at her, reminding her of the unread letter sitting back in her bedroom, under her mattress. Echoes of a voice she hadn't heard in years, which was both their faults in part. The only one besides Jason who knew about Puerto Rico.

And she wondered if it might be time to open herself up to that voice again.

* * *

During Tuesday's library group work session, Jason and Piper volunteered again for the coffee run. When they returned, both with definite Make-Out Hair (which Leo gave Reyna a significant look about), they distributed the drinks, and then all four got back down to business. They'd spent half an hour in near silence when Leo broke.

"Did you ever hear back from that guy?" he asked Jason. "The girl's friend's boyfriend?"

Jason started. "Oh—I'm so sorry! He emailed me this morning. I thought I told you." He scrambled to pull up his email, blushing at his mistake. "Yeah, here it is."

Piper leaned over to peek. "Well, what's it say?"

"Not much, actually," he admitted. "Says, 'Hey, Jason, Sorry it took me so long to get back to you. Yeah, I was part of the group that went to prank Central, but nobody I was with saw the fire start. And I swear, we had nothing to do with it. It was just a couple jokes, completely harmless, nothing to do with fire at all. No way would we be stupid enough to do any real damage. Sorry I can't help more. Ben Eighmey.'"

Reyna's heart sank. Was that it? Part of her was relieved that those students weren't terrible people, but another part would have preferred to just find out now and be done with it. And the question remained: if the pranking group didn't start the fire, then who did?

Leo huffed out a heavy breath. "If no one's gonna tell us anything, how are we gonna find out the truth?"

"I don't know," Jason sighed, sounding as disappointed as Reyna felt. "I mean, we can't stop looking. But I have no idea where to go from here."

Piper's eyes were a little red, but she suggested, "Do you think he'd be willing to tell you who all went? Maybe we could ask someone else."

He nodded and sent off the quick reply. "Here's hoping."

* * *

With Leo's earlier words still stuck in her head, Reyna flipped on her bedside lamp and leaned against her headboard.  _If no one tells us anything, how can we find out the truth?_ She'd gotten on his case for keeping quiet about his living situation… but he wasn't the only one who'd blocked someone out to avoid hurt.

Leaning to her right, she slid her hand under the mattress and pulled out the letter. The military-pristine words were now slightly creased but still totally legible. One leg started to jitter under the blankets, but she only acknowledged the anxiety and pushed herself to read.

To acknowledge the strongest woman she knew, the only one who knew exactly what she'd had to overcome. And the one who'd left her to do so by herself.

Her sister.

_Reyna,_

_I hope this letter finds you in a good place. I know it's been a while, but I thought perhaps enough time had passed by now that you might have forgiven me. And even if you_ are _still angry, please read this anyway_ ~~ _or save it for later_~~ _._

 _I'm sorry I hurt you, but I'm not sorry I left. I told you that before._ ~~_It wasn't Puerto Ri_~~ _It could have been worse, but I needed to get out. You know what that feels like. Sometimes things change. I feel like I make a difference, working here, and it's so great. The only downside is that they keep me so busy I haven't made time for you, which is my own fault. I apologize for that._

_I'm sure you're staying busy with college work. Don't forget to relax occasionally, soldier. You got your work ethic from me, you know, so take some advice too. All work and no play makes us lonely women._

_Oh, that reminds me. Would you be able—or want—to visit Seattle over Christmas? I'll have a couple days off. I want to see you. Think about it, and call me when you're ready. (206) 903-1010._

_I love you._

_Hylla._

Reyna's leg had stopped jittering, but her fingertips clenched the paper so hard it crinkled. Her throat felt like it had been stuffed with tissue paper; she clenched her jaw against the overwhelmed tears. Part of her wanted to ball it up and throw it away—Hylla had  _left her behind_ as soon as she graduated, just moved on and left her to tread water on her own, and now she came back with four tiny paragraphs?—but she couldn't. An apology was an apology, however belated and brief. She missed her sister. It had been, what? Five years now? Five too many.

She saved Hylla's number in her phone. Neither of them were particularly loquacious, but they had a lot to catch up on.


	24. Anchored

"Ben Eighmey sent me the list of people."

It took a second for Jason's words to register, but as soon as they did, Piper, Leo, and Reyna snapped to his side, all ears. "So?" Piper prompted. Her leg started to jiggle. "What's he say? Who was there?"

Leo admired her dedication to this investigation, even if he didn't fully understand it. He leaned forward and tugged on her hair, an affectionate gesture. She swatted him away and then pulled on a handful of his own curls in return.

"Hey, come on, my hair is the most marketable part of me," he joked. "If you yank a bunch out, I won't be able to get a job anywhere."

Reyna laughed, and Piper tugged once more just to be stubborn.

Jason waved his phone at them, and they returned their attention to him. "He says this might not be everyone, but he definitely remembers these ones being part of the pranking group the night of the fire." He read off a list of maybe ten names, some of which sounded familiar but not particularly suspicious. Then he stopped. His forehead creased as he read on: "And Octavian was there. Octavian Augur."

"I effing  _knew it!"_ Piper shouted. "I  _knew_  he was a piece of trash!"

Leo swore a long string only half in English. His few interactions with the scarecrow-y guy had been less than impressive, to say the least. And Octavian had made snide comments about Piper, which was the number-one way to get on Leo's bad side.

Reyna's eyes flared dark with anger, and though she said nothing, her tightly clenched jaw suggested she was swearing on the inside.

"It doesn't… mean he did it," Jason started. "Maybe he's a jerk, okay, but he's not stupid. I have a hard time seeing him taking a bunch of people to watch him set the place on fire." Jason also had a hard time imagining the worst of anyone, but Leo decided not to bring that up.

"Or maybe he thought they'd cover for him on the hopes that no one would think  _they_  had been there," Reyna pointed out, voice low. "Which, if you recall, was pretty much exactly what happened."

"And even if he didn't set the fire himself, he was there, and he's high up enough to have put the photos up on that faculty-staff drive," Piper pointed out. "He's worth talking to, unfortunately. And if he  _did_  do it, I'll have zero regrets throwing his ass to the cops."

Jason seemed to struggle with this development, and then as if out of sheer desperation, he asked the two Central transfers, "Were you guys on campus that night? Did you see him, or anyone else?"

Piper shook her head. "I was out with Annabeth. Road trip just over the state line. We didn't get back until the evening after."

"I was out all night too," Leo agreed. "Working, I think." Evenings during the semester kind of blurred together, and he didn't remember that evening in particular, but that whole week he'd pulled extra shifts.

But his best friend gave him a side-eye and then snorted. "Uh, no you weren't. Or at least you better hope you weren't."

"What?"

She looked at him oddly. "You totally drunk-texted me."

He froze. "What? You never said anything."

"Yeah, because the text wasn't exactly family-friendly, and I wanted to delete it from my memory." The faint amusement drained from her expression, and she touched him on the shoulder. "Wait, do you—do you not remember it?"

"N-no." It wouldn't have been the first time he had gotten a little in over his head—as evidenced by the bar crawl that had outed his living arrangements. But—"No, I totally woke up in my room, in work clothes."

Reyna considered him with a serious look that had him a little nervous. "You don't drink at work."

"No, of course not, duh." He had enough trouble paying the bills without getting fired.

"Would you drink in the shop room?" she asked then. "If it was just you, late at night working on a project? The clothes would be about the same, I would think."

"He's done that before," Piper told her before he could protest. "His super-secret Bunker Nine, he called it once when he was super plastered. Aka workshop nine. It was always just him there. Drunk-texting, drunk-calling, couple different times. It would make sense, now that I think about it."

"No, I could—I could swear I was off campus," Leo stammered.

"I would  _definitely_  swear you weren't at work," Piper countered. "I'd bet actual money you were in that shop." She looked at him with clear worry now.

"Which would put you right in the path of the fire," Reyna said evenly.

Jason was all Concerned Father, his hands laced on his knees, so Leo kind of just angled himself away from that. He didn't really want to see the horror on his best friend's face, either. So he focused on the cool analysis in Reyna's eyes, the matter-of-fact look that said she just wanted to get to the bottom of the mystery. If she had any  _special_  emotions muddying her mind  _(which, duh, of course she doesn't,_ he reminded himself), he couldn't see any sign of it. And that was somehow reassuring.

He looked her right in the face. He didn't even look at her mouth. Much, anyway. "I don't remember that night," he told her honestly. "That whole week, I worked extra hours. Early shifts, late shifts." Another thought popped into his head, led there by the comments about shop. "I did have a couple bigger projects I was working on. My free time, I was in the shop. It would make sense for me to have been there, if I wasn't at work. But shouldn't I remember?"

"Not if you were black-out drunk," she pointed out. "And science doesn't really support repressed traumatic memory."

"Which means what?" he pressed.

She shrugged precisely. "It could mean we're reaching, and you're fine. Or that something did happen, and you forgot about it because the alcohol blanked it out." She betrayed none of her anti-drinking opinions, for which Leo was grateful. Now was not the time.

"If I blacked out…" He hesitated. Then he shook his head. "I don't know." There were a lot of things he didn't know, apparently.

"Don't worry. It's okay. We don't have to figure it out right this second." Reyna made no move to touch him, even though he could've used a hand on the arm or a hug. He didn't ask for one.

Piper threw one arm around him, sensing his need. "We'll talk to Octavian. See what we can find out." She ruffled his curls fondly.

The president's gaze zeroed in on the motion, unreadable. Her fingers curled into her palms.

"Gwen was on the list too, our student gov secretary," Jason pointed out. "She could know something, and unlike Octavian, she actually likes Reyna and me. I bet she'd help us."

Piper's familiar fingers remained threaded through Leo's hair when she leaned over for her phone. "Can we order pizza? If we're gonna get any deeper into this mess tonight, I'm gonna need some calories in me."

"Sure, pizza sounds good." Jason glanced at Leo though, just for a split second, before he added, "But maybe we should leave the investigating for tomorrow. Just chill and get a little homework done or something."

"Wow, you know how to woo a girl with wild night life," she teased him just before the Pizza Hut guy answered the call, and then she devoted her complete attention to making sure he got all the toppings right. Her hand fell away from Leo's hair, and he reached up to rub his hand over the sudden chill.

Reyna seemed to be struggling with herself over something, and just before he could open his mouth to ask what it was and/or tease her about it, she caved.

"Do you think it would be okay," she started, clenching her fists, "if I… touched your hair?"

Dark heat crawled up Leo's throat and cheeks.  _Don't read into it,_  he instructed himself, as much as he wanted to believe she liked him as more than a friend. Friendship was what he had, what he appreciated, and no way was he going to wreck it. He gave a little grin and then nodded, tilting his head toward her obligingly.

The touch of her slim fingertips on his scalp almost made him choke with hysterical nervous laughter.  _Local mechanic dies of sensory overload from one touch._  That would be a kind of embarrassing headline.

Her brow furrowed the tiniest bit with concentration; she fingered a spring of hair, rolled it, and tugged, just the tiniest bit. The tingle sent a jolt through his whole body, down and out into every extremity. He squirmed and laughed to cover up the movement. Reyna might have bought it, but Piper poked him in the side, out of view. It was a  _haha you're so screwed_  poke.

He couldn't disagree.

* * *

"Hazel, I got your caramel frap." Piper beamed down at the short, curvy freshman as she handed her the drink, then cast the smile upward at her giant teddy bear boyfriend. "And, Frank, your muffin." She tossed him the wrapped pastry, and he caught it. Almost dropped it, but caught it, and gave a winningly sheepish grin. "Good catch."

He blushed. "Thanks."

Hazel tucked her hand into his elbow, her own cheeks dimpling. "Thanks, Pipes. See you for lunch?"

"Yeah, for sure." Piper waved them off and took a second to enjoy the warm buzz of friendship. But some snotty hipster senior cleared his throat, and she had to turn back to the less pleasant part of work. "Hi, what can I getcha?" At least the smile still hung on her lips. That helped.

He ordered and pulled out his wallet, with a cursory "I've got the change."

"No problem," she lied, and she flashed him a smile that was his undoing.

In the moment he met her eyes, his grip on the wallet jerked. Coins, cards, a wallet's collection spilled across the counter. Too late, he lunged for it all, but it had already scattered over both sides. He ducked to pick up the stuff on his side, and Piper crouched to do the same on hers. A couple dimes, a business card… and an ID and a credit card.

Blowing a tiny breath out between her lips, she rolled the latter in her fingers. She hadn't had such an easy target in months. She was out of the camera's eye, and this moron certainly wouldn't pick up on the loss for another day or two, not given how slack his jaw was two seconds ago.

Easy as pie, as cake, a big slice of her favorite vegan devil's chocolate cake.

But… she couldn't.

Not with a mental image, HD-clear, of Jason's Disappointed face. The one she imagined he'd wear if she ever admitted to her less straight-edge pursuits. She couldn't let him down.

So she stretched to a stand and handed the senior his money, his cards, everything. He thanked her, paid, and then left as fast as he could after she handed him his drink. She leaned against the counter to gnaw on the inside of her cheek when she heard her best friend's voice.

"Don't think I didn't see that, beauty queen."

She turned toward the bar, where Leo grinned toothily at her. "Didn't see what?" she evaded.

"Yeah, exactly. Nothing. That was a clear opportunity, and you practically shoved it away." He plopped down on a stool. "And you haven't needed any… security checks during grocery trips, either, for a while. You going soft?"

He was just teasing, but she bristled. "No, I'm still flawless, and you know it."

"I do," he admitted readily, "which begs the question—why'd you bother stopping?"

Screwing up her mouth, Piper grabbed a washcloth and scrubbed at a coffee stain inside the sink. "Nothing. No reason. Who said I did?"

He tapped his fingertips on the countertop.  _Not stupid,_ the Morse said.

The steel gleamed, and her knuckles stung. She dropped the cloth. If she couldn't be honest with Leo, she couldn't be honest with anyone. "I'm just not feeling it anymore, okay?"

"Uh-huh." He raised his eyebrows with a smirk. "Wonder who—uh, I mean what—brought  _that_  on."

She picked up the cloth and threw it at his face, just to spite him. The slapping noise it made when it connected with his cheekbone was pretty satisfying. "So I got rubbed off on. It's not a big deal." It wasn't like she regretted the change; she just hated to admit that it had happened at all. It felt like a failure, even though in the end it would probably be a win. She was in charge of herself.

"I mean, you're the coolest person ever either way," Leo said in the matter-of-fact tone he might have used to declare the weather. "Better not to go down in a blaze of sirens, probably. Good for you."

She hesitated, then leaned over to ruffle his mass of curls. "Thanks, I guess. Dork." He always had her back. A smile touched her face whether she liked it or not. She wouldn't trade her best friend for anyone. No returns, exchanges, or refunds.

But would she need some of those for their not-completely-aboveboard cars?

 _I could return them,_  she considered.  _Leave them back where I picked them up from. But Leo worked on them, so they aren't the same anymore. Practically unrecognizable. And besides, they were in a back lot of a half-abandoned squishing shop—they probably weren't even missed. Which was why I chose them in the first place._

Leo flicked a crumb of muffin off the countertop and Piper clenched her fist by her side in determination.

 _I'll just leave it as is,_  she decided.  _It's been two years. If nothing's happened by now, nothing will._

And if something  _did_ … well, she'd just have to hope this choice didn't bite her in the butt.

* * *

The apartment kitchen sat quiet, broken only by the light beeping of a number being tapped into a phone.

The line rang twice before the other end picked up. A nostalgically familiar voice: "Hylla Ramirez-Arellano."

For half a second, Reyna considered hanging up. Then she gathered her wits again. "Hylla, it's—this is Reyna."

The tiniest intake of breath. "Reyna? Really?"

"Yeah."

Surprised silence. Finally the elder sister cracked. "How are you? How's school?"

"I'm all right," Reyna replied. "Better than all right, actually. Jason and I have an apartment right near campus, and we're student government president and vice president."

"Tell me you're president." Hylla's grin was nearly audible.

Reyna smirked. "Well, naturally."

Her sister laughed—amused agreement. "If you had done any less, I would have been disappointed."

Smile hanging on, Reyna wrapped her free arm around herself. She had missed her sister. "How are all your Amazonian… underlings?"

"Oh, bowing to their queen, as always," Hylla joked. "No, honestly, I love the CEO work. It keeps me busy, though."

"That's what your letter said." Reyna shifted her phone to the other ear. "Do you—?"

A quick  _tap tap ta-tap_  of knuckles on the door, and then the knob twisted, and in stepped Jason, flanked by a glowing Piper and a bouncing Leo. They greeted her with loud enthusiasm before she hushed them and covered the phone; then they shushed each other and slunk into the living room to start up Netflix.

"Sorry," Reyna said to Hylla once they'd disappeared from view.

"Who was that?" her sister asked, sounding more than a little interested. "That wasn't just Jason. Who's all living in that apartment with you,  _hermanita_?"

Reyna rolled her eyes and all but snorted. "The other two aren't living here.  _Technically._  But they spend so much time here, they might as well." Leo laughed at her comment from the other room, and her toes curled before she could catch herself. "One was Jason's girlfriend, Piper. The other was her best friend, Leo."

"Hi!" the two in question chorused, loud enough for Hylla to hear.

A light laugh. "You can tell them I said hi back."

"No," Reyna declined, "I think it would just encourage them."

"You're probably right." Hylla hummed a little under her breath. "I'm glad you've made some friends. I worried about you."

"Then why did you leave?" Reyna asked, quietly but quickly enough that she couldn't take the words back. She hoped the other three couldn't hear her now, or that at least, if they could hear, they wouldn't talk about it. To each other or to her.

Hylla had gone silent at the accusation, but now she sighed. "I don't want to have this conversation over the phone."

"When are we going to have it, then?" Reyna's voice cracked a little. "And where?  _You left!"_

"I left for  _both of us!"_ Hylla's response sounded like a knee-jerk reaction. "I needed a fresh start so I didn't lose my mind. You needed some time to get out of my shadow."

The living room had definitely gone quiet, and Reyna's throat felt thick. "You—I didn't—"

"Am I wrong?"

She wanted to deny it, but as strong as she had been, had  _had_  to be, it had always been easier to hold on to her sister as a tiny security blanket. After the move from Puerto Rico, Reyna had gripped Hylla's hand as hard as she could, safer with her big sister. Even in high school, when most sibling pairs detached and blossomed into individuals. Reyna's alpha tendencies had begun to unfurl, but she repressed them because it was easier than trying to stand on her own. She didn't learn to stand on her own until she had to, after Hylla left for the Seattle job.

"I hated that city, that damn school." Hylla's voice shook. "I stayed as long as I could so you could have a little stability. You deserved that much. But it drained us both. It was selfish of me to leave, I know, I just—I was losing it."

Part of Reyna understood that, but another part of her didn't want to acknowledge it. When she found her voice, it rose. "It's been lost, Hylla! Since I was eight, I never found it again! And you dropped me off to live with the Graces like it was summer camp—!"

"What would you have wanted me to do? Let you up and leave for one year, maybe less? The job involved so much traveling, and who would have had to homeschool you? Me!" Hylla was yelling, but with frustration and old despair at having had no good options, not with bitterness at her broken sister. "I'm not a teacher! And working full time, I wouldn't have had enough time for that!"

Reyna's fingers dug into her phone just as the line crackled. She didn't think it was cause and effect, but she forced herself to loosen her grip just in case. "And not calling for weeks, months at a time was just, what? Added bonus?" A hurtful thought slapped her across the face, and she voiced it before she could stop herself. "Yeah, thank God you didn't have a stupid little sister to drag around anymore. You move away, you can finally drop the baggage."

 _And that's what I was,_  she tried not to think and yet thought anyway.  _Heavy, stupid, effing baggage weighing her down._

But Hylla drew in a shaky breath, quieted. "No, Reyna, no. You weren't baggage. Don't ever—no."

Reyna's eyes burned.  _Wasn't I?_ They had never had enough money to spare on the luxury of a therapist, not for either one of them. They rarely brought up what they'd fought through. The few times she'd thought she'd made progress, a nightmare tore through her sleep and left her screaming, sweating, beyond terrified, and right back where she'd started.

Of course Hylla had given up and left. Who wouldn't, when saddled with someone so broken?

"What happened," Hylla began again, still sounding close to tears, "it wasn't your fault, at all, ever. And whether or not you're able to grow past it,  _I love you,_  baby sister. Don't ever think otherwise."

Forcing herself to swallow against the thickness in her throat, Reyna nodded, although she knew her sister couldn't see it. On the other end of the line, she heard a light smacking noise that sounded like a soft air kiss, the kind they used to share before bed on days when she couldn't handle any touch.

_Oh, great, now I'm really going to cry._

"Can I call you back?" Reyna managed.

"Sure, sure, hon." Hylla knew, just like she always had. "I love you."

"Love you too." Quick hangup, and Reyna took a second to get her emotions under control.  _I can't go in there like this._  Netflix was playing, but she knew full well the other three had heard that conversation; it was a small apartment. She scrubbed at her eyes and tapped her cheeks, hoping to erase any evidence. She took a deep breath and blew it out long and slow.

_Okay. Okay._

Feeling just collected enough not to burst into tears at a glance, she drew herself up and went into the living room, where all three were piled together on the couch. Jason and Leo on the ends and Piper squished in the middle. Too focused on the show, they didn't look up even when she walked over, the generosity of which was almost too much for her to handle.  _They won't force me to share if I don't want to. I could walk away._  But instead she tapped Jason on the shoulder, and he immediately looked her way, blue eyes filled with concern.

"You need anything?" he asked in an undertone.

She shook her head but then gestured to the couch. "Can I…?"

"Of course." He started to motion for everyone to get off, but when she shook her head again, he saw what she really wanted. The three scooted over, and Reyna slid in on the end to nestle into Jason's side. Her best friend put his arm carefully around her shoulders, and she tried to focus on every detail of the episode they were already halfway through.

They made it through two more episodes without anyone trying to talk to her about the call, and it was glorious. With the lid on her tears, she managed to get the emotional baseline down, if not to Calm, at least to Quiet. When Jason's phone buzzed with a call that he had to take, she let him get up without a fuss.

After the door closed behind him, Piper and Leo looked her way. Piper cautiously extended one hand, and Reyna took it. The touch was solid, warm, comforting. Not as all-encompassing as the solidity of Jason's side, but good nonetheless. Leo's brow had crinkled with concern, but he didn't put himself forward.

"You okay?" the barista asked. "Anything I can—?"

"I'm all right, thank you." Reyna's smile was thin but genuine.

An idea popped into Piper's head, and the relief was visible on her face. "Hey, you want a hot chocolate?"

Just like Reyna had made for Piper on a rough day how many weeks ago. A smile tugged at Reyna's lips. "It's always welcome," she admitted. Piper gave her hand a tiny squeeze and then hopped up to head to the kitchen. Seconds later—the sounds of porcelain on the countertop, and of the fridge opening for the gallon of milk.

In the absence of the two people who'd separated them, the space between Reyna and Leo now felt gaping. Both shifted more towards the middle of the couch. Leo seemed leery of coming too close, which threw her for a bit. Until:

"I know you're not much for physical contact," he offered, "but if you want a hug…" He held out his arms.

Reyna pressed her lips together, unsure if she could pull together a coherent, un-teary sentence, and she nodded once before leaning in. His long arms folded warm around her, and she slid her own underneath to lace behind his back. For just a moment, she allowed herself to rest her forehead on the hard arch of shoulder curving into neck. The tips of his fingers traced light, tingling, reassuring lines up her scalp, and she almost arched her head back against it.  _Exactly right._

"You ever want to talk," he mumbled, "I know a thing or two about… stuff."

He knew about being dropped by family, about feeling alone, about having only a best friend to rely on. She nodded against his shoulder, her grip tightening. She could have held on longer, just soaking in his angular warmth and his comforting support, but Piper came in with the hot chocolate then. It was with conflicted disappointment that Reyna disentangled from Leo.

As she sipped from the drink (trying not to let the pile of marshmallows topple), she caught Piper and Leo having a silent conversation. By the end, Piper was rolling her eyes, and Leo was glaring at his knees. Reyna pretended not to have seen; if she'd been part of that conversation, they'd have spoken aloud.

"That taste all right for you?" Piper asked, gesturing at the mug.

Reyna managed a small smile. "It's great, thank you."

"Hope it helps."

"It does." But that was partially a lie: while the hot chocolate was perfectly fine, it was the support of her three friends that had really anchored her.

She held out her hand again, and Piper took it.


	25. Safe

Reyna settled into her seat at Spanish club, the big armchair farthest away from the rest of the group, and pulled her laptop onto her lap. As her web page loaded, she pulled up her go-to homework assignment, the World Myth paper. With AU week (and Halloween, accordingly) approaching, the deadline was closer than ever, and she wanted to have this done at least a week before it was due if she could manage it.

She triple-checked her sources to make sure she'd met the requirements, but before she could get in on any real work, a familiar hand rapped a  _tap ta-tap tap_  on the back of her chair. She twisted around to see Leo grinning down at her, and a smile broke out on her face.

" _¿Qué pasa?"_  he asked, and she knew a test when she heard one. It had been weeks, maybe two months, since they'd both come to Spanish club, and the last time he'd tried to engage her, she had summarily shut him down. Now that their odd relationship had come so unbelievably far, he wanted to try again. Hugging in the apartment was one thing; this was another.

" _El tiempo,"_  she teased, and the overjoyed relief deepened his dimples so much she was tempted to stick her fingers in them.  _God, I'm pathetic,_  she thought, regretting none of it.  _"¿Quieres sentarte?"_ (Do you want to sit?)

He froze, and too late she realized she might have overstepped. "' _Quieres'_?" he repeated, more quietly than he usually did much of anything. "Are we on  _tú_  terms?"

Back to English, wow. She'd really messed up. How could she backpedal without coming across as rude? "I thought—I guess I wasn't thinking," she apologized. "Sorry, I shouldn't have assumed. We can—Let's just forget—"

"Nope!" he interrupted. "Nope! Too late!"

Her brow furrowed. Where was he going with this?

"We are officially on  _tú_  terms now," he continued in a rush, as if eager to get it out before she stopped him. "No take-backs! Ha!" He did a little twisting dance, almost as bad as when he'd first fixed her Mustang, and fondness warmed her from the inside.

She laughed a little, relieved and pleased and amused. "You say that like you tricked me into it."

"Didn't I?" he countered with a grin, and he laughed himself when she gave a  _well you got me there_  shrug.  _"Y sí, quiero sentarme, mi reina. ¿Me puedo sentar contigo?"_ (And yes, I want to sit, my queen. Can I sit with you?) He beamed at the informal you.

She acknowledged the question and the hierarchical term of endearment with a regal nod and then moved over. There was just enough room on the wide armchair for both of them, never mind that the chair next to her was vacant. This one was really more like a loveseat anyway. His eyebrows jumped but he didn't question her; he only sat, squeezing up against his armrest so she could have a little more room.  _Aww._

" _¿Haces la tarea de nuevo?"_ he asked. (Are you doing homework again?)

She considered him, considered their friendship. And decided it was time to admit a crucial truth.  _"Por supuesto,"_  she said primly (Of course), and then she minimized the document to show him what was loading on the web browser. Dramafever, with the latest episode of her current telenovela.

He looked for a second, blank, and then the realization dawned on his face like a mischievous sunrise.  _"En serio... ¿una te—?"_ (Seriously… a te—?)

"Shh!" she hushed him.  _"Es una buena práctica. Si dices algo, voy a matarte."_ (It's good practice. If you say anything, I'm going to kill you.) She had revealed a weakness. He had better not use it against her.

Of course, that was asking too much of him. Thankfully he didn't drag it out in public, but she did not trust the gleam in his eye.  _"Seguro, reina,"_  he allowed with a splitting grin. (Sure, queen.) He accepted the earbud she offered him, and when she started to give him a quick run-down of what was going on, he admitted he had seen most of this particular novela already.

 _Oh, really?_ She said nothing, but a sneaky smirk grew on her lips, and he looked appropriately suspicious.

" _No te preocupes,"_  she reassured him (Don't worry), not meaning a word of it. If he teased her later, she wouldn't hesitate to turn it right back at him.

He moved like he wanted to get up, but she tugged on one belt loop and he fell right back into place, a welcome warm weight beside her on the chair-couch. They both settled back, their shoulders and thighs just brushing with a fiery electricity that Reyna felt hyperaware of as she set the laptop on his right leg and her left and pressed Play.

They kept up a running commentary, a promise kept to swap their perspectives on a romance. Every time Reyna muttered about an unsubverted trope, Leo tugged lightly on her braid and told her to appreciate the moment. Really, what made the whole romance bearable was that it was only part of a bigger story, a complicated tapestry of deeper issues and difficult problems to solve. They could both agree on that.

But it was a long episode, and their heads inclined closer and closer, and eventually Leo barely bothered to remove his hand from her hair. She could feel the light pressure of his fingers moving to the top, stroking down, back up, back down. How could she possibly feel at once so relaxed and so on edge, waiting for something she wasn't sure what?

One of the side characters was investigating a blackmail letter—nothing romantic going on at all—when, on impulse, she glanced his way.  _To make sure he's still watching and enjoying,_  she told herself, but really just to look, just to soak him in. It took him half a second to notice her attention, and those excellent dark eyes snapped to meet hers. She couldn't tell what he was thinking, but he didn't lean away. That had to be a good thing, right?

She couldn't come up with anything clever to say to explain herself, and he offered nothing either. But a dark flush crawled up his cheeks, and his thumb flicked as if he were holding a lighter. Heat coiled in the pit of her stomach, buzzed in her arms, and she thought about twisting her fingers through his hair again.  _It was so soft. Perfect tiny barrel curls._ And the instant tingling magic every time she touched him skin to skin…

Her lips parted as her gaze flicked to his mouth. They were sitting so close; it would be so easy to just—

" _Hola, Reyna, mucho tiempo sin verte."_  (Hey, Reyna, long time without seeing you.)

With lightning-fast reflexes born of weeks of pretending to do homework during Spanish club, Reyna's fingers tapped out a quick Alt-Tab to switch over to the essay file before she looked over at whoever had addressed her. The face looked familiar—Ame, was that the name? Yeah, Ame, Amelia Castillo, a junior now. Hopefully she wouldn't notice the heat burning Reyna's face.  _"Hola, Ame,_   _¿qué pasa?"_

" _Nada,"_ the girl sighed with a grin, " _¿y tú?"_

" _Nada,"_ Reyna agreed, and then Ame gave a tiny finger-wave and wandered off to greet another friend. Thank God, no comment about her face, her novela, or her seating situation. Half of her wondered if it was glaringly obvious what had just almost happened; the other half of her knew no one was as interested in her as she was and probably didn't much care either way. And Leo was now staring at his knees, still visibly warm but also clearly a little embarrassed. Whatever that sizzling connection had been, it was now quite broken.

Exhaling slowly between her lips, Reyna tapped a few sentences into the World Myth paper (which counted as work) and then switched back over to the episode. They picked up the commentary again, but she didn't look his way until they parted ways for class. She couldn't risk that loss of control again.

What had almost happened? Touch was  _dangerous_. She was forgetting that, and she was forgetting to even be concerned about the fact that she was forgetting it. After everything…

She couldn't help but wonder:  _Am I going completely insane?_

* * *

After classes ended for the day, Reyna agreed to hang out with Piper and Annabeth at the hobbit house for the evening. She had not realized she was signing up for a party with half the campus.

 _Okay, slight exaggeration,_ she admitted to herself as she looked around the table where everyone had congregated for a game of Spicy Uno that had devolved into simple conversation. She knew everyone here: clearly she knew Piper and Annabeth, and then Annabeth's boyfriend, Percy, and Hazel and Frank from student government. And Jason and Leo had come over too, thank goodness. So she wasn't floundering for friends; she just wished she could have had a little more forewarning.

"Yeah, it wasn't bad for a summer job. I sat there and lifeguarded people… but I had to wear a shirt, so it kind of stunk." Percy's dorky grin made Annabeth roll her eyes. Even Reyna, who wasn't 100 percent comfortable with him yet, gave a little chuckle.

Piper jokingly covered Hazel's ears. "That's no way to talk in front of little ones!"

"Oh, hush." Hazel elbowed her away, laughing.

Piper patted her on top of her halo of corkscrew gold-streaked curls. "I'm just trying to protect your innocence."

"Right, uh-huh." The curvy short girl settled into her boyfriend's side. "Not to worry. It's an absolute bear trying to get this guy to kiss me in public or rent an R-rated movie. My innocence is perfectly safe."

" _Hazel,"_  Frank complained halfheartedly, but when she pressed a kiss to his soft cheek he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. No real division there.

Piper glanced at her phone, and her expression froze into something that was supposed to be Cool And Fine but definitely, definitely wasn't. Reyna half rose from her seat before the other girl excused herself and ducked out the back door to answer it.  _Do I follow?_  She decided no, not yet, and lowered herself back into her chair. But she exchanged concerned looks with the two guys who cared most about the barista.

Piper returned five, ten minutes later, her phone shoved in her pocket. "Everything okay?" Reyna asked.

"Yep." With a subject-closed  _pop_  to the P. "So did you guys want to watch anything tonight? I can't stay too late—early shift tomorrow—so sooner rather than later'd be good."

The president eyed her friend, well aware that that had been a topic change, and not a subtle one either. But she also knew that it might be news for just the closest circle, not the wider net of friends.  _If she doesn't want to share here, I won't make her._ So she let it drop for now.

But the cool Everything's Fine look didn't fool her for a moment.

* * *

The next afternoon happened to involve a canceled work shift (Leo's) and a canceled class (Reyna's), and the weather wasn't horrible, so they walked to the apartment from campus. The stated reason: "meeting the dogs." Reyna hadn't gone into detail about how big a deal that would be.

"Here, come on in." She held open the door as he stepped inside, then shut it behind them both.

"Whew, thanks," he teased. "I was really concerned there for a minute that you weren't gonna let me in. Given how much you hate me, and all."

She gave him a fake stink-eye. "Don't get comfortable. I might still change my mind."

"I'll be on my best behavior." The brilliant smile he flashed her, a little too innocent to be believable, still shot tingles up her spine. Dammit.

"You are such trouble," she said, half to herself, shaking her head with a smile on her face. "Why I tolerate you, I'll never know."

"My wit, charm, and baffling good looks?"

She tapped her chin. "I think it's the car maintenance discount," she decided finally.

He gasped melodramatically. "Now that's just…" After a long pause, he shrugged. "…logical and I can respect your common sense. All right."

Lord, she liked him. How irritating. "Yeah, okay, come here." She headed for the dogs' cages, and he trotted along behind her. "Now, I'm telling you, stay behind me. They take a while to warm up to people. They barely like Jason." She didn't tell him the other part, how innately they defended her. If Leo had bad intentions, her pets wouldn't even pretend to like him.

"And I'm telling  _you_ , I'm a dog person."

 _We'll see, won't we?_ The cages rattled a little with the dogs standing up and circling, ready to go. She crouched to undo each latch.  _Shhick-clang. Shhick-clang._  "Okay," she allowed them, and as one, Aurum and Argentum burst from their cages, dashing around her feet before coming to a suspicious stop in front of Leo. They stared him down, barely reacting even when he held out a hand for them to sniff. She started to say,  _I told you so, don't feel bad,_ but then Aurum ducked forward to sniff Leo's most personal bits, and Argentum licked his hand and then gave a happy little bark.

"Oh," said Reyna. "Well."

He beamed at her as he scratched both dogs fiercely behind the ears. Their tails thumped in unison. "Told you."

"You did," she admitted, still half in shock. "They need to expend some energy. Want to take them for a walk with me?"

"Sure!"

So they finagled the leashes onto the excited brothers and headed out into the brisk fall day. He recounted a particularly colorful encounter with his shop professor, and she told him about living with the Graces for her last year of high school. Their shoulders bumped as they walked, and she tried not to think about it. She got an opportunity to run off some of the burn: the dogs continued to press for more exertion, the kind that could only be given by a nice sprint. She turned to Leo. "How would you feel about a little run?"

He shifted. "Um, I'm maybe not at my fittest right now, running-wise. But I'm game to try."

"Okay, good. If you need to stop, just stop." Without any other warning, she took off down the street, her breathing automatically falling into rhythm with the beat of her feet on the pavement. Aurum flew out ahead of her. Behind her, Leo made it about twenty yards with an overexcited Argentum before he slowed and doubled over, breathing hard with his hands on his hips. "I'll just—wait here!" he called.

Reyna laughed once and held up her free hand to show she'd heard.

She ran Aurum to the end of the road, then returned to the other pair. Leo just held out his leash, and she traded him it for hers. "Be right back," she said, not even out of breath, and darted away again to give Argentum the same treatment. Once she returned this time, both dogs had gotten the edge off, and Leo's breathing had almost returned to normal. She was breathing just a little more heavily than normal, but the adrenaline and endorphins had her feeling light. No problem. "Let's go."

They had no more trouble, but they decided to stop briefly at the auto repair shop to get out of the wind. Once they arrived, the dogs strained at the leashes to sniff around the new surroundings, but Reyna brought them to heel without too much difficulty. "Can I bring them in? Or should I run them home?"

Leo looked a little in awe of her stamina; inwardly she preened. "As long as they don't run around and knock stuff over, they should be fine."

She considered this. "All right, we'll try it." It wasn't like they'd be there long anyway.

Once Leo let them all into the garage, the dogs had their initial sniff around and then settled at Reyna's feet.  _I'm so glad they calmed as they grew up_ , she thought as she jumped up on a table, thinking not-so-fondly of times in their puppyhood when she couldn't let them loose for five seconds without something breaking.

"Oh, hi."

She jumped at the unexpected deep voice. Beckendorf had been hidden behind a car, now only visible because he stretched his neck out to see her. "Hello," she replied. "Am I interrupting? We can g—"

"No," Leo insisted at the same time Beckendorf shook his head and assured her, "No. I'm almost done for the day."

Leo found his lighter in the phone desk and flicked it on and off, on and off. Reyna eyed the tiny flame, mildly concerned, but it never came near anything flammable. They both fell quiet at the other mechanic's presence, uncertain how to proceed with someone else there, but the silence only lasted a few minutes before Leo dug around under the desk and then whispered, "Betcha I can eat all these Thin Mints."

Reyna felt her eyebrows jump: the box was full, unopened. "Don't do it," she whispered back, though a smile had split her face. "That's a horrible idea."

He tore it open and pulled a cookie out. "One," he sang with a grin. He tossed it into the air, caught it in his mouth, and almost choked.

She laughed despite herself.

Beckendorf threw the hood of his project shut, bid a brief goodbye to the pair, and drove it back out front. A minute later, Leo identified the bigger guy's car by the sound of the engine. "Yep, he's leaving," he confirmed.

Reyna didn't say anything, but she could feel the thread of tension unwind from her body. She had come far, but she still wasn't nearly as comfortable around acquaintances as she was around the big three, Jason and the Troublemakers.

He noticed her relaxing, though, and a grin dimpled his cheeks. He hopped up onto the table beside her, and the dogs only responded by thumping their tails until he petted them.

"Those damn dimples," she teased him. "You could probably whip those out and get anything you wanted."

That tangible flush darkened his neck and ears again. "Anything?" he echoed, his voice cracking.

Then suddenly it was only Reyna and Leo alone in the back of a car shop that smelled like gasoline and sweat, and her legs stopped swinging and her hair felt heavy and she watched as Leo and his grease-splotched hands leaned closer to her, anxiety all over his face.

"It's possible," she said. "If you ask nicely." Why was her heart pounding so loudly?

His dimples, ironically, disappeared. A sure sign he was no longer joking. "Can I maybe kiss you this time?" he asked in an undertone, as if there were anyone else around to hear him.

No. Touch is dangerous. Touch is vulnerability.

But she had already crossed the touch barrier with Leo in small increments—the hair, the hug, the novela, the walk. And instead of twisting the relationship, it had cemented it, bringing them closer together as people. She trusted him, like she trusted Piper or even Jason. She knew he would never intentionally hurt her.

And she looked at his bony elbows and his spotty post-pubescent acne and his sharp shoulders and his curly hair and his dark, dark eyes, and she realized that for the first time since Jason, since Puerto Rico, she was inclined to say yes.

So she inclined her head and met him where he sat—a light brush of her lips on his, no literal or figurative pressure, because if he felt something off and wanted out this was the time, now, before they did anything they might regret.

Their mouths were in frozen contact for one, two seconds, and then she pulled back, uncertain.

He was staring at her, wide-eyed. Was it wrong? Her stomach sank. She really shouldn't have—but then he swore in dazed Spanish, and she watched as a flush blossomed in his cheeks, spots of magenta that crawled like ink on paper across his nose, down his neck, even onto his shoulders and arms.

"Sorry," she whispered. For being a bad first-time kisser, for not being more fun, for being unable to give him everything physical that Jason and Piper were so open about.

But he shook his head. "I just…  _You."_

Her fingernails dug into her palms.  _What does that mean?_

His eyes, always dark, now seemed endless. The dimples reappeared. "Can we do it again?"

"Ag —really?" she almost choked on the word.  _There's no way we can,_ _ **I**_ _can, make this much better…_ She nodded yes, though, because she trusted him, and this time it was he who jumped in, his hands already weaving into her hair like he was afraid she'd try to back off. And this time he wasted none of the contact. His lips pressed against hers, reassuring and resolute, and the slight dryness of wind-chapped skin scraped in a soft, friendly, easy way. Her own hand drifted upward, and her eyes closed a moment before her fingers threaded through his hair again. He gave a little  _hmm_  of pleased surprise, and she felt the vibration in her core.

 _Touch can be safe,_  she realized in the warmth of contentedness.  _Leo's touch is safe._

* * *

After going out for dinner just because, Jason and Piper came back to the apartment—Annabeth was having Percy over at the hobbit house, which meant Piper wanted to stay well away as long as possible. But it worked out: Leo was working and Reyna was pulling a solo study session at the library, so they had the place to themselves. They did some good old-fashioned making out on the couch, and then once they had rumpled each other up, they worked their way back down to cuddling in front of a short Netflix binge session.

Between episodes two and three, though, Piper shifted against him. "I love you," she said.

"I know," he said, laughing a little. They told each other multiple times a day, so it wasn't like he'd forgotten. "I love you too."

She quieted, traced the angles of his face with her fingertip. "Even if you find out things about me you don't like?"

Jason made her look him in the eye then, his brow crinkling with concern. "You already know the answer to that. Are you okay?"

"Yeah." She waved this off, but her casual tone sounded forced even to her own ears. "Of course. No worries." She didn't want to get into it before she had to. She had a day left, maybe two, to work herself up to admitting what was going on.

"No worries," he echoed, but he seemed unconvinced.

As well he should have.

* * *

Reyna and Jason had planned to talk to Octavian after the student government meeting, but when morning came around, he was the only officer absent. Secretary Gwen told the group he emailed her, said he'd had a family issue come up, so he wouldn't be attending today.

 _Of course,_  said the looks that the two best friends flashed each other.

They made it through the meeting, which was mostly just making sure all AU plans were in motion, and then hung back afterward to consult.

"Do you have any classes with him?" Reyna asked once the other officers had disappeared out of hearing range.

"No," Jason said, "but most days he leaves the cafeteria and passes by Nectar and Ambrosia while I visit Piper on her shift."

"When's that?"

"Eleven-thirty, forty-five at the latest."

She glanced at her watch. "Okay. I'll keep an eye out at the library. You make sure to watch for him then too."

But neither of them caught a single glimpse of the Augur boy all day, even when they enlisted the help of Piper and Leo, and eventually they had to acknowledge temporary defeat. With the good weather, the apartment pair had walked to campus, so the group of four piled into Piper's car for a Dairy Queen run. As they pulled out onto the main road, though, Piper remembered, "Oh, wait, I have a couple coupons at home for free Blizzards."

"It's fine," said Reyna, who would have happily covered the cost of Leo's ice cream. She was wearing her relaxed braid instead of the business-tight one, and he was threading his fingers through it. He had been wearing a dopey smile every moment they'd been together since they kissed in the garage, and she doubted he would care much who paid.

"I think we're okay," Jason reassured his girlfriend, from the passenger seat.

But Piper's gaze flicked back at Leo, just for a second, and Reyna could see she felt that his pride would overcome his lovesick idiocy in the end. "They expire soon. We are  _morally obligated_  to use them. It's only a teeny detour anyway." Given that she was the one driving, no one really had the power to choose otherwise.

They pulled into her subdivision, and the first thing Reyna noticed was the faint colors reflecting off a couple of the houses. Red flickering to blue then back.  _Strange_ , she thought,  _that looks just like—_

They pulled onto Piper's street.

Two police cars, sirens off but lights glaring, were parked in front of the hobbit house.

The blood drained from Piper's face, and her knuckles went white on the steering wheel. Leo had gone rigid, serious, unnaturally still. A confused Jason said something that didn't register in her ears.

Looking like she would rather have been anywhere else, Piper slowed. Pulled into her driveway. Parked. Stepped out of the car.

One of the cops approached her. "Piper McLean?"

She swallowed. "Yeah?"

He looked like he might have been sympathetic on a better day, a better charge. At least Reyna thought so. Piper was a troublemaker, no doubt, but she wasn't a  _criminal_. What could this possibly be about?

"Ms. McLean," the cop said firmly, "we're here to talk to you about a double case of grand theft auto from two years ago."


	26. Promise

Reyna sat between Jason and Leo in the police station lobby, her hands curled into fists on her knees. Jason was leaning forward, his head in his palms, and Leo played with his lighter in one hand and hung on to the edge of Reyna's sleeve with the other. His dopey grin was long gone now.

Piper had been in the back with the officers for almost two hours.

Occasionally Jason raised his head, started to say something, but it always petered out into a groan. Leo wouldn't say anything, even when Reyna leaned in and asked as a personal favor under her breath. So the three of them sat, knowing little, sharing less.

"Should we ask someone when she'll be out?" she asked, specifically saying  _when_  instead of  _if_. With all they didn't know, it wouldn't help to assume the worst.

"I guess," Jason said, sounding lost.

"Ask who?" Leo pointed out, gesturing around. The one cop who'd been out front had disappeared a couple minutes ago and hadn't come back yet.

Reyna sighed. "I don't know."

But finally the familiar head of short braids and choppy hair came around the corner—with a grumpy-looking officer on each side. From the set of her jaw, Piper had done her best charming and sassing and gotten nowhere with either. For a second Reyna wanted to smile.  _Ha, I bet that was hilari—no!_  She caught her own thought and forced it back.  _Charming and sassing might be amusing on their own, but you have to cooperate with the law. The system rarely works in our favor as it is._

She wanted to believe that, once Piper got the rebelliousness out of her system, she had cooperated and solved whatever the mistake had been.

Yet she was still clearly handcuffed.

"What's…?" Jason started.

"They're keeping me overnight," Piper said flatly, her gaze not quite landing on any of her friends. "Maybe longer."

"What the…" He struggled against the profanity. "What  _for?"_

A rare blush, rouge-like under her natural dark tan, crept over her cheeks. She glanced at her (arresting?) officers, who revealed nothing by their expressions, and then subtly she tugged away from them. Both grabbed her by an arm and brought her back to their side. "Don't make this harder than it has to be," said the male officer, who had clearly watched too many crime show dramas in his day.

Piper pressed her full lips together like she was withholding some choice words and oh what a shame  _that_  was.

The female officer bore dark circles under her eyes, presumably from long shifts, but she still had the decency to act like they were all human beings. "You'll be in custody for at least twenty-four hours," she said to Piper, "and when your lawyer arrives, I strongly encourage you to give us a statement. Work with us, and we'll work with you."

Reyna noted the name on her uniform. Kang. The man was labeled Montenegro. Good to know, in case this went… whatever direction this was going.

"You can talk to your friends," Kang continued, "until visiting hours are over, which is in about thirty minutes. There'll be at least one officer with you at all times." She didn't apologize, but Reyna thought, hoped, she saw sympathy in her eyes.

"I'd like to talk to my friends, then," Piper said, pronouncing each word with uncharacteristic precision. Full and rounded, then clipped off short at the end. As if she were making sure not to say anything other than what she needed to.

"All right. I'll be at this door—" Kang gestured to the only exit, five feet away. "—and Officer Montenegro will be at the main desk." Which was the way to the rest of the police station and its potential exits.

Piper said nothing more, and when she sat down beside her boyfriend, the clank of the metal around her wrists seemed deafening. No one spoke for a long minute. Reyna wasn't sure where to even start.

"Pipes," Leo began, still hanging on to Reyna's sleeve for comfort, "it might be… time."

" _Time?"_  Jason echoed.

Looking only at her hands, Piper swallowed hard. Her beautiful kaleidoscope eyes shone with tears, but none dripped free. "I didn't… I'd hoped…" She squeezed her eyes shut. "I'm sorry."

Despite the confusion and worry creasing his brow, Jason reached out and laced his fingers through hers. "What happened?"

She glanced up at Leo, and they had another silent conversation, which involved a lot of head-shaking on his part. Finally he threw up his hands, even the one on Reyna's sleeve. "I'm not telling them," he insisted in a harsh whisper, in case the cops could still hear them. "I don't even know the whole thing. It's your problem— _you_  tell them."

"Thanks for the support," she snapped, and then immediately her expression softened into guilt. "Sorry."

He just reached for Reyna again and then moved over so he could get ahold of Piper too. "I did a security sweep. You're good from your current angle. Just keep your voice down."

"I have a lawyer coming tomorrow to… help me out. Until then, I'm not telling these guys  _shit."_  Lifting her chin, Piper straightened the tiniest bit, though she kept her voice low, out of hearing range of Montenegro and Kang. "But you guys—you guys I'll tell." Her gaze flashed guiltily toward Jason. "You deserve to know."

* * *

The metal burned cold around Piper's wrists, and her legs wouldn't stop trembling. But as long as she maintained the façade of being totally cool, she was halfway there.  _Fake it 'til you make it._

"I'll start—I'm not sure where to start," she muttered. "The beginning, I guess."

Of course, it was hard to fake when all her smooth-talking skills seemed to have deserted her.

 _Okay, focus,_ she told herself.  _Basic smooth-talking principles: Who are you talking to? What do they know? What do they want to hear? No,_ she cut herself off,  _what do they_ _ **need**_ _to hear?_

"Leo and I met in high school," she began again, "but before that, I got loaded off on my dad's secretaries mostly for school, for everything really." All three knew who her father was, so she didn't need to go into much more detail than that. "I hardly ever got to see my dad. I just saw his employees spending his money."

Jason squeezed her hand in sympathy. This much he knew already. It was what was about to come up that would really test his compassion.

"So I figured out ways to see my dad. I terrorized my tutors, I acted out like crazy. And when that stopped working so well…" She clenched her teeth and looked down at her knees, unwilling to watch the reactions. "I started picking things up. Things that weren't mine. Cheap, small, it didn't matter.

"At first I was really bad, mostly 'cause I was only, like, eight. The first time I got caught, I got a lecture. Just from the tutor. So I did it again, and  _that_  time they called my dad." She screwed up her mouth in a mirthless smile. "They thought that would scare me into stopping. It just convinced me to continue."

None of them said anything. She still didn't look up. The student gov two were probably crossing themselves or something.

"Eventually I got better at it. Stealing. I could get bigger, better, more expensive stuff. Sometimes I could even talk my way out when I got caught. And I got caught  _less_ , but then when I  _did_  get caught, they always called my dad, every time. And I got to talk to him.

"In junior high, they warned me. Said if you don't stop, we're gonna assume you have a serious problem and take serious measures to deal with it. I didn't believe it, figured they would just fly my dad  _in_  instead of having him call. So I dove in way over my head. Stole a car right off the street, let myself get caught. Didn't even try to talk my way out."

A sharp intake of breath from Jason. He hadn't pulled away from her, but neither had he given any more reassuring squeezes.  _It'd be stupid to expect any more after he hears all this,_  she told herself, trying to make the coming blow hurt less. Part of her hoped his loyal, loving side would win over his law-abiding side. But part of her knew he might just be a little too straight-arrow to accept so much deviance. And the lying that had covered it up.

"Well, they didn't fly my dad in. They called him—and they called the police. For real this time. I was a kid, so they gave me a deal: community service and the god-awful Wilderness School." Her voice cracked, and she winced.  _Fake it, fake it, fake it._ "The only, and I mean  _the only,_  good thing about those four years was having Leo around. Everyone else was absolute garbage to me, to him. Only way I kept myself sane was by perfecting my pickpocketing techniques, plus double-teaming with Leo for pranks. I threw a party for us the day we got our GEDs and got the hell outta there.

"And we'd somehow scored scholarships to Central too," she almost choked out, still in awe of however they'd managed that. "So we were set. Except that we were broke and we didn't have jobs and we didn't have cars and, oh yeah, my dad's secretaries made him ignore me for four years, minus a couple weekend visits in the summer. So we get out, and I call my dad." She swallowed again, tears burning her eyes. "First day, nothing. I leave a message. Second day, some woman I don't know picks up the phone. Know what she tells me?

"He's busy." Piper shook her head angrily and pressed at her eyes with the heels of her hands. "He's  _busy._  I just wanted  _five minutes_  to let him know I hadn't  _died_  or anything, and…" She exhaled sharply and tilted her head up to glare at the ceiling, hoping gravity would help keep the tears in her eyes. "…and I got nothing. And I was just so— _f–ing_ —mad, it was like I couldn't see straight.

"So I figured, okay, I'm on my own now. So I pick up a shitty waitressing job two seconds off campus, Leo picks up as many shifts at the local garage as he can, we have a little minimum-wage money coming in now, but we still don't have a single vehicle between us. No taxi service in the area, no bus system. If we wanted any decent groceries, or to do a job interview, anything, we were shot to hell, we were so screwed.

"And we probably would have managed," she admitted, looking back down to her knees. Humiliated to admit that the particular line of thought now felt like too much but at the time had seemed like the perfect screw-you. "We could have sweet-talked our way into bumming rides. But it felt like just  _one more thing._  The universe giving me the middle finger. And I'd seen the cars my dad's people drove. And I just…"

She shook her head again.

Leo ruffled her hair.

Jason was silent.

"I went to this old parts place," she started again, once she was no longer in danger of crying. "Swear to God, I was just looking for stuff Leo might be able to use. But I saw this big-ass lot of all these cars, variously crappy, all about to be squished up and tossed. And in the veeeery back—"

She could still picture the near-totaled Malibu and almost unrecognizable Camaro hidden in the back of the lot, marked for dismantling and smashing.

"Katoptris and Festus," Leo mumbled.

Jason and Reyna sucked in a sharp breath at the same time.

Piper winced. Quickly she jumped over the next part: "I figured either, A, we'd get a couple free cars, or, B, I'd get caught and get to talk to my dad again. And, well, one thing led to another, and suddenly Leo had two cars to fix up." She glanced over at Kang. The officer was straining just a little to hear the whispered story, which reassured her: in her experience, cops who could actually hear her always pretended they were too far away to hear, so she wouldn't quiet down. If Kang had looked nonchalant,  _that_  would have been reason for concern.

"No one was going to miss them. And with Leo's overhaul, all the major fixes and changes, no one was going to recognize them either." She chewed the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood. "That was over two years ago. I kinda figured that if the shit was gonna hit the fan, it would have happened already."

" _Piper,"_  Reyna whispered. "That was not one of your better life decisions."

But Piper already knew that, and she was more worried about someone else's response. For the first time, she dared to glance up at Jason.

Her horrible liar of a boyfriend sat frozen, pale. He opened his mouth… and shut it again.

He stomach clenched.  _No. Please…_ but even  _she_  knew she was asking a lot for him to come around right this second. So she dropped his gaze and looked toward Leo, who'd already known most of the story and so hadn't gone catatonic with betrayed disgust.

"You guys should probably go on home," she said, raising her voice back to normal volume. "I'll be here overnight. And hey, they took my phone, so one of you needs to text Annabeth and let her know I won't be home tonight."  _No need to tell her why._

"I can do it," Reyna offered. "I've already got her number." Her serious gaze made it clear that she understood the minimum-information-only subtext.

Piper nodded once. "Thanks." She chanced another glance at Jason but saw nothing encouraging. She pressed her lips together, prayed that the burning tears would disappear, and nodded for them to go ahead. They didn't. All three of them sat with her until Kang and Montenegro declared that visiting hours were over.

Just before the officers took her back, she searched once more for Jason's gaze, for the tiniest bit of hope in those impossibly blue eyes.

He averted his face from her. But not before she saw the pain there.

* * *

The remaining three no longer felt up for Dairy Queen, or even a solid meal. So they went back to the apartment, where Reyna texted Annabeth the bare facts ("Piper won't be home tonight and doesn't have her phone on her") and then forced the guys to each have a glass of water. Jason barely managed to get his down. No one tried to talk. No one tried to start up Netflix. No one tried to do anything other than stare at each other.

"What the hell," Reyna sighed finally. "Leo, you knew about this, didn't you." It wasn't a question.

"Yeah, I did." He palmed the back of his neck. "Sorry. It was another one of those not-my-secret-to-tell things."

"Seems like we've had a lot of those," Jason said, somewhere between frustrated and angry and hurt. Logically he understood that yes, most of the stealing went on a long time ago, and yes, this was an old thing that had suddenly come up again, and yes yes  _yes,_  he loved Piper and he needed to support her.

But she hadn't told him. She hadn't even tried. Didn't she trust him? Could he really trust  _her?_

Guilt needled him at having left her at the station, even though he knew full well he wasn't allowed to stay overnight with her, even in the lobby. Surely there had been another option. One that had involved him sleeping in the parking lot, or her telling him  _before_  she was in police custody, or maybe her not  _stealing two cars._

He dropped his head into his hands and groaned.

Her vice couldn't be  _pride_  or  _profanity_  or something  _legal_. What was he supposed to do? He couldn't encourage theft. And it wasn't like he thought she was stealing from him, but if she was stealing from other people, he couldn't just stand by. Had he let this happen? Had it happened right in front of him and he hadn't seen, blinded by Aphrodite?

"You okay, man?" Leo asked him.

Jason shook his head and gestured broadly. "I don't know," he admitted, voice low. "I don't know."

They lapsed back into silence.

* * *

The police station fell quiet with the night, but Piper couldn't get any good sleep in the holding cell.  _It could always be worse,_  she reminded herself, but surprise, it didn't help. After four in the morning, she was so exhausted she drifted off briefly against the wall, but it was a catnap and she woke feeling just as worn. She knew Leo had a Saturday morning work shift and Jason had a game, but she still held out hope that they would show up. So she waited and watched the clock. Once, around eight, she tried chatting up the guard, but he must have been given specific instructions not to engage with her, because he was having none of it. The only words he responded to were "I have to go to the bathroom."

But the clock ticked on, and she had no visitors.

 _Maybe it's for the best,_ she told herself.  _I'm all tense waiting for the lawyer, so it's not like we'd be having a party anyways._ She tried to ignore the fact that having them there, for emotional support if nothing else, would have helped.

Officer Kang came back on shift and brought her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch. Piper took it, grateful that it wasn't meat and cheese. And that using truth serum was inadmissible for evidence in the United States courts.

Around one o'clock, her luck improved. Kang let her out of the cell, saying, "The cavalry has arrived."

 _Oh, good. The lawyer. Finally._  Piper said nothing but let the officer lead her to a back room. She walked in, expecting a suit and a briefcase and a bad attitude—and found her father sitting there at the table, his expression troubled.

"Dad?" Her voice came out higher than normal, younger. She sank into the second chair, unable to take her eyes off him. Had she lost her mind?

"Piper," he sighed. "What have you done?" Based on his disappointed tone, it was a rhetorical question.

"I…" She searched for a good explanation and came up empty. "What are you doing here?"

"Take a wild guess."

She averted her eyes.

"This is the last time, Piper. You're an adult; it's time you started acting like it."

"I have!" she protested, looking up at the accusation. "I've changed. I'm different than I was in high school, and if you would give me half a glance, you'd know that!"

He gave her a sharp look. "Don't take that tone with me. I love you, but you know work keeps me busy."

"Yeah,  _so_  busy," she snorted. "Give me a break. Nobody's too busy for a ten-minute phone call."

"If you wanted to talk to me, you should have called."

She pretended to brighten at this. "I should have called? Wow, maybe you should tell that to what's-her-nuts, your secretary who hates me. Oh, wait, that's all of them." She sank back down in her seat. "I do call. Or I did. But there's only so many times I can call and get told you're 'busy' and they'll 'take a message' and then never get a call back. I know when I'm not wanted."

He looked surprised at this, and a little wounded. "They told you that? When?"

"Like, twice a week for half a year after I got out of that crappy camp school." She shrugged, working too had to feign nonchalance. "I figured it out eventually, no worries."

"Piper, no." He reached for her hand, and she was too surprised to shake him off. "I never—I didn't get your messages. I didn't know. I'm sorry."

She wanted to demand more, to scoff,  _You think_ sorry _is going to cut it?_ But she had missed him, and sorry was halfway to what she'd been pursuing since she was eight. Her fingers curled around his. "I called for you," she whispered, "and you were never there."

"I'm so sorry." His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. "Things will be different now. For both of us. Deal?"

She looked her dad in the eye and held on to his hand a little tightly. "Deal," she agreed. And she didn't even cry.

* * *

After they made the deal, Piper had to sit in the room by herself (well, probably with some cops watching in secret) while her dad took care of some business out in the hall. Years of experience told her it was probably a work call, but he'd promised. So she waited, and she purposefully trusted him.

Maybe half an hour later, the door opened again. Her dad and Officer Kang stepped inside.

"So, what now?" Piper asked, which was three more words than she'd said to the cop all day.

"Hands, please." Kang leaned down and, to Piper's surprise, unlocked the handcuffs and dropped them on the table. "You're free to go."

"I'm…?" Piper looked to her dad, then back to the officer. "What?"

"The parts businessman dropped the charges," Kang said lightly. A little too lightly. "Said there was a mistake. He's not going to press it. So you're free to go."

Piper could feel her lips forming a little O.  _What the ever-loving…?_ She jumped up.  _Well, I'm not going to stick around and wait for the other shoe to drop._ "Uh, okay." Her dad shot her a look, and she added a halfhearted "Thanks."

Kang let them out into the hallway, shut the door, and then headed to what smelled like the break room, leaving father and daughter alone.

"What'd you do?" she asked him, flat-out. "The car parts guy didn't make a mistake."

Tristan McLean gave a sneaky little half-smile that made her smirk reflexively, a mirror image.  _Bet his stupid secretaries never get to see that side of him._  "Let's just say I took care of it."

There it was: he'd played the Rich And Famous card. Piper's guess, based on past parallels, he had paid the parts guy as much money as the two cars had been worth, and then some. The parts guys had probably made bank and been more than happy to drop the lawsuit.

"But I was completely serious," he warned her. "This is the last time. If you break our promise, you'll have to deal with the consequences on your own. Wherever it takes you."

"Got it." She pretended to salute, but he saw through her flippancy. He gave her a little smile, this one less trouble-making, and gave her a hug that she returned fiercely.

"I'll call you tonight," he promised, the words a warm breath in her hair.

"I'll hold you to it."

He drew back and studied her face as if he were taking in everything about her. Maybe he was. "I love you," he said with a smile.

She was starting to believe him. She smiled back. "I love you too."

He chucked her lightly under the chin and then headed out towards the lobby, probably to get on a flight ASAP. She took a deep breath to steady herself.

Officer Kang said something about getting her stuff back, but Piper's focus was already elsewhere.  _Jason's hurt,_  she thought, preparing herself for the worst.  _And it's my fault. This was huge, and I lied about it. I can't blame him if he needs time to think about it._

The officer led her out to the lobby area, chilly from the fall air let in by opening doors, and Piper barely registered signing out or getting her phone and purse back. She'd found the people who were there to pick her up. Her closest friends.

Leo and Reyna stood by the door, huddling close in jackets and scarves and holding a pair for Piper as well.

But Jason was nowhere to be seen.

"Hey, guys." She approached them, rubbing her arms. "Is he in the car?"

They winced in unison. "Sorry, Pipes," Leo said, too gently.


	27. Telling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: About three-fourths of the way through, this chapter briefly recounts sexual abuse of a minor.

 

_Leo and Reyna stood by the door, huddling close in jackets and scarves and holding a pair for Piper as well._

_But Jason was nowhere to be seen._

" _Hey, guys." She approached them, rubbing her arms. "Is he in the car?"_

_They winced in unison. "Sorry, Pipes," Leo said, too gently._

* * *

Piper's stomach sank. He hadn't come. She had hoped…

She checked her phone. The only new message was from Annabeth, reporting that Percy had "learned a new trick" but not specifying where this trick might have been performed. Nothing from Jason. "Did he tell you to tell me anything?" she asked Leo and Reyna.

They glanced at each other. "No," Leo said. "He wasn't really talking when we left."

So he hadn't texted or called to tell her to leave him alone. And he hadn't told either of their besties to pass on a stay-away message. That wasn't exactly an open-arms welcome—but neither was it the explicit rejection she'd given him when she found out he hadn't told her about the suspicious fire circumstances.

"Is he back from the game?" she asked.

Leo nodded.

 _Well, Piper McLean waits for no man,_  she told herself and straightened up. "Did you drive down here?"

Reyna shook her head. "We walked." The police station wasn't even a full mile from the apartment.

"All right." She shrugged on the jacket and swooped the scarf around her neck. "Thanks for being here."

"No problem," Reyna said warmly. "We're going to get a late lunch, if you want to join."

"Thanks, but I have to go get back into the cute blond's good graces." Piper gave them a jaunty wave and a "Later!" and then took off up the road without looking back. She wasn't as fit as Reyna or Annabeth (was anyone?) but she could make it to the apartment if she paced herself. And no way was she going to risk missing him, hence the tearing pace.

She forgot to take into account that she was moving slightly uphill, though. Halfway there, her calves throbbed, and her heart drummed too fast in her chest, and she was acutely aware of the fact that she hadn't been able to reapply any deodorant that morning. But she forced herself onward, unwilling to accept defeat.

Finally Piper stumbled into the parking lot and up onto the front step, and she used the last of her strength to pound on the apartment door. The pure adrenaline that had gotten her there began to fade. She sagged against one of the columns, swiping sweaty hair from her forehead and panting. When Jason opened the door and caught sight (and smell) of her, his eyebrows jumped.

"Did you run here?" he asked.

She blew out a breath, trying not to hyperventilate, and nodded.

He hesitated. "Do you need water?"

"Please," she wheezed.

Though he looked uncomfortable, he stood aside and gestured for her to come inside. She propped her fists on her hips and caught her breath while he poured her a big cup of water.  _I feel like shit, and I look like shit, but at least it got me in the door._  "Thanks," she said when he passed it to her, even though he was careful not to let their fingers touch. She gulped it all down, swiped the back of her hand over her lips, and set the empty glass back onto the counter with a  _clink_.

"Are you out on bail, or what?" he asked, looking over her head. With the way he said it, she suspected his knowledge of the justice and crime system came mostly from TV shows and academia. She didn't ask to confirm this; it would only emphasize her surplus personal experience.

She shook her head. "I'm  _out_  out. The guy dropped the charges. We get to keep the cars and everything." She didn't try to pass the charges off as wrong, since she'd already admitted they were on point and she was done lying anyway.

"Oh." He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "That's… good."

"My dad came," Piper told him, going for the  _total and utter honesty_  approach. "He, um, donated money to the cause. Helped me out. Said it was the last time, I had to get my shit together."

Jason choked on a little laugh. "Was that the exact phrase he used?"

"Ha, no." Piper cracked a little smile, hoping it would encourage the same from him. But he remained distant, uncertain. "Listen, do you have time to talk?"

His cheeks dusted a light pink, and he hesitated a second too long. "I… don't know. I was going to make a grocery run this afternoon. If I wait too long, we'll—Reyna and I—have to have a late dinner."

"Uh-huh," she said. Well, of all the excuses she'd ever heard, this was not the absolute worst. Maybe he really did need groceries.

_Or maybe he wants some space, which I would be willing to give him if he'd just come out and say it._

"Look," she said, crossing her arms in front of her chest, "if you don't want to see me, all you have to do is say so. This weird 'ehh sorry I'm conveniently not going to be around' game is dumb, and I won't play it."

Jason's blush darkened, but she couldn't tell whether she had hurt his feelings or just hit the nail on the head.

"You want me to go? I'll go." She pressed her lips together, determined to get everything out before he got sick of humoring her and kicked her out again. "I'll give you space if you want it, but I love you. And I know I suck, and you're perfectly within your rights to want to kick me to the curb, but no more lies, for real."

He rotated his jaw and looked away from her, hurt creasing his brow. "I can't—How am I supposed to just take that at face value? You would say that either way." A vein touched his temple.

 _He's as hurt as I was, maybe more._ What concerned Piper: would his lawful side or his loving side win out? Love had won her over in the end last time, but law was so much stronger a part of him.

 _Well, there's one way to tilt the scales,_  she thought, and for a moment she imagined pulling him in for a kiss, caressing his stupidly handsome face until he caved. Their lips fitting perfectly together, their breaths and heartbeats in quick sync. Her legs would lock around his waist. If she was lucky, he'd push her up against the counter. He knew how much she cared about him; a good solid makeout session would convince him of it.

Then she cut herself off, mood whiplash.  _No! Bad Piper!_ She squashed down the too-tempting mental images.  _No, no, no. As much as we would both enjoy that, it wouldn't solve anything._ There would still be the underlying issues, the tension of unresolved conflict. Eventually that would tear at him, at both of them, enough that their relationship would die out—either flame out in a blaze of frustrated anger or simply wither away with the lack of real communication. And no way was she going to encourage that.

"What's that look for?" he asked her, sounding faintly curious.

She shook her head again quickly, dispersing the last of the images. "Oh, for a minute there I was tempted to just kiss you into submission."

He burned red, and she almost laughed.

"But," she continued more quietly, "I decided not to. Because we need a deeper solution than that." She quirked an eyebrow. "No matter how fun it might be at the time."

Jason fell prey to a coughing fit that sounded suspiciously like he was covering up laughter. Once he regained his self-control, he asked, "A deeper solution? Do you have a suggestion?"

Now it was Piper who avoided his gaze. "I can't just tell you what to believe. You're going to have to trust me, Jase." She already trusted him, to hell and back.

"That doesn't seem like much of a solution."

"It might not be  _complicated_ , but I don't know how  _hard_  it'll be." She wished it didn't have to be difficult for him to trust her, but she'd broken his trust. She'd done this. Now she had to face the consequences.

Jason crossed his own arms, a reflection of her, and she hoped she wasn't grasping at straws in thinking the mirroring was a good sign.  _Body language lessons, don't fail me now._ Tilting his head toward her, he said, "No more lies?"

"No, never ever, not at all," she promised, and she crossed her heart and held up three fingers. "Girl Scout's honor."

He did laugh at that. "If you were actually a Girl Scout, I pity your troop leader."

She threw him a snazzy grin. "She should have qualified for sainthood."  _Like you,_  she added silently.

Leaning against the counter, he traced a light circle on his forearm over and over. "I know we'll never know every single thing that ever happens to each other," he continued with the more serious line of discussion. "But when important things come up, we'll tell each other. We're being upfront and honest even when it might get us in trouble. Yes?"

"Yes." She nodded hard. "Besides, if we didn't fight every so often, we'd basically just be the same person, and that'd be super boring."

"You'll be seeing a lot of boring if you stick around with me for too long," he warned her.

"I could use a little more boring in my life," she replied, only half joking, a comfortable smile easing onto her face. "You aren't getting rid of me that easily."

He laughed a little under his breath and tugged her closer to him. "Obviously," he whispered, and then he kissed her.

* * *

After lunch, Reyna and Leo spent about half a second debating whether they wanted to stay outside or not, and then, stiffening against the bite of chilly wind, they speed-walked back to the apartment. She opened the door, uncertain whether she would find Jason still angsting alone or loudly making up with Piper. What she did find was a pleasant surprise: the other couple was lying on the couch, interlaced but not actively affectionate, just talking in low tones.

"Hey, are you guys doing okay?" she asked, just to make sure, as she hung her jacket and scarf on a hook by the door.

Jason's forehead crease (a constant over the last twenty-four hours) had smoothed out, and he looked from Piper to Reyna with a soft smile. "We're getting there," he said.

Piper's little huff of relief confirmed it.

"Should we leave you to it, then?" Reyna offered, gesturing over her shoulder at the door they'd just come through. "We wouldn't want to intrude on your personal time."

"I mean,  _I_ would," Leo corrected her. "It'd be pretty funny, I bet." He bit down on his lower lip and wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. "Who knows what great blackmail material we might witness."

"Right." She rolled her eyes and tugged at his arm. "Come on."

"You don't have to leave," Jason protested, a little weak, a little late. "It's… fine."

Disguising the movement as a stretch, Piper elbowed him in the stomach. Reyna pretended not to see.

"No, really, don't worry about it. I was going to work with this one—" She nodded toward Leo. "—on the memory issue anyway." The  _Piper getting arrested_  side trail hadn't completely put the major problem from her mind.

"Then shouldn't you be somewhere you can talk without having to worry about being overheard?"

"Dear Lord, Jason Grace," she exploded, throwing up her hands. "Just take the gift."

Settling back down with a chastised expression, he gave an embarrassed little smile. "Okay. Fine. Do you want me to text you when we're done being sappy?"

"Please." Reyna gave Leo a significant look, one that said  _it's probably going to be a while and no one wants to be around to see it_ , and she reached over him to get her cold weather gear again. And while she was at it, she pulled a couple hats down from the top of the coat closet and tugged one over his curls and pointed ears.

"What am I, five?" he joked. "I don't need a  _hat_. I'm a  _man_." But he only adjusted the fabric so it sat more comfortably.

She gave him a smile that was just for him, invisible to the couple at her back. "I was cold just looking at you."

"Well, I can fix that," he offered in a lower tone, his eyebrows jumping in equal parts hope and teasing, and she swatted him on the shoulder.

"Hush," she whispered, though her lips had curled upward. They hadn't officially talked about what was okay to say in public and what wasn't, and then there was the  _not quite public but not quite private either_  subsection of being with Piper and Jason. They hadn't even had the all-important DTR yet. That was another reason, unspoken but just as important, she was so willing to leave the established couple here and go somewhere else to talk with Leo.

She turned back around, pulling the second hat onto her own head, and she caught a suspiciously gleeful look on Piper's face that she definitely did not trust. Leo hadn't told her about the recent development; he hadn't had time. But his best friend, unlike Reyna's own, could pick out subtleties from a mile away in the fog. And Leo's incessant dopey grin the other day hadn't exactly been well hidden, either.

It wouldn't be reaching to guess that Piper had figured it out. She'd probably felt a psychic tremor or something when they kissed in the auto shop garage.

Reyna shot Piper a mock-displeased glare. Piper's grin widened.

_Yep, she definitely knows._

But she wouldn't have told Jason without getting the okay first. So Reyna and Leo still needed to lay out the ground rules for their new relationship, and then they needed to officially announce the news to their best friends.

"We'll see you later," she told them, dragging Leo out the door with her, and she heard Piper's suggestive "Mm-hmm" followed by Jason's confused "What—did something happen?"

 _God bless_ , she thought, and laughed a little despite herself.  _My best friend is a grade-A oblivious dork. And I wouldn't trade him for anyone._

"I think Piper knows," Leo said, voicing her earlier thoughts. "I swear I didn't tell her yet, though."

She touched him on the arm, relishing the tiny contact. "It's okay. I figured as much. She's just smart about things like that."

He grinned. "Oh, so Jason's  _not_  smart?"

"That's not what I—"

"I'm gonna tell him you said that!"

"I  _didn't_  say that!"

Turning, he pretended to call back toward the apartment, "Jason, Reyna said you're dumb! I heard her!" She shushed him again, the noise lost in her laughter. Thankfully, there was no chance her roommate had actually heard the accusation, and he wouldn't have believed it regardless.

The pair walked extra quickly to get out of the wind, and they finally slid into the library, which was quiet and nearly empty. Most of the students on campus had better things to do, Reyna guessed. She had considered taking his hand while they walked but decided against it, since the ground rules remained unestablished; now she slipped her hand into his to lead him downstairs toward the study rooms. His fingers warmed hers, and he didn't pull away.

They found the room they preferred for working on the World Myth paper, far in the corner and out of the busier sections, and they ducked inside and closed the door behind them. "Secretive library kissing time?" he asked hopefully, and she intentionally gave him an arch look that could have been interpreted either way.

"No, real talk time," she told him after a moment of him giving her puppy dog eyes. Then she allowed, "With maybe some secretive library kissing time mixed in. We'll see."

He beamed, and his dimples popped into visibility. She rewarded him with a light kiss on the cheek.

"But in all seriousness, what are we doing?" She slid into a seat around the table, and he sat beside her, although without any physical contact. "And where are the boundaries? If we don't talk about it, we'll just assume things—and I mean me too, not just you—and that's just asking for trouble."

He shifted a little at her serious tone, but he didn't try to make a joke out of it. "I thought, uh, or at least I kinda hoped we could be dating now." He considered this and then added, as if to make sure she hadn't misunderstood, "Dating each other. Just you and me. Exclusively."

"I do know what dating is," she said gently.  _Does he think I'm playing around?_ "I'd like that."

He started to say something that sounded like "Are you _sure?"_  but swallowed it, blushing a little. "Okay. Awesome."

"And boundaries. What's okay for you and what's not?"

"Like, in public versus in private?"

"In general, but that too." In case he wanted an example, she prompted, "Personally, I'd rather keep kissing private, but holding hands and more friendly touch is okay in public. In moderation."

He nodded. "Sure. Private is the apartment and the garage? Or when Jason and Piper pretend to get coffee for twenty minutes during work sessions?"

Surprised at the accuracy, she laughed. "Right. So?"

He leaned back on the chair, balancing on the back two legs, and twined a curl of ink-black hair around his pointer finger. "That sounds fine. No problem."

"And, Leo…" Reyna shifted in her seat, heart beating a little harder now. "It's only fair, you should know…" Her gaze skittered down over her folded hands, the desk, the wall, the floor, before coming back to rest on him. Her nails dug into the skin on the backs of her hands. Her left leg trembled irrepressibly. "I can't… One of my boundaries—"

He lowered his chair back to its normal four-footed position and tapped out Morse on the table.  _It's okay._

Despite the reassurance, she gritted her teeth. If this was a deal-breaker for him, she would just have to cope with that. "I'm not comfortable having sex. Not any time in the foreseeable future." Maybe,  _maybe,_  one day, but she wouldn't offer that hope until she knew for certain. For now, and since she was eight, it was stained too darkly for her to enjoy the thought of it.

"As in, before you're married?" he asked carefully. "Or at all?"

"At all." She scrutinized his expression for disregard, disgust, disappointment, but found only concern.

He held out his arms. "Can I give you a hug?"

 _Try_ _ **not**_ _to assume this is the beginning of the end,_ she told herself. She nodded and slipped her arms around him.

He held on long and then let go with a squeeze. "This have to do with the touching thing?"

The touching  _thing_. What a way to put it. She burned cold, like pressing ice against her wrists, and she had to remind herself that this was a safe environment.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Dryly, cracking a half-smile, she said, "You just don't want to talk about your blackout."

"Damn straight," he admitted, "but I also want to know, if you're okay with telling me. You don't have to if you don't want to."

Reyna appreciated his honesty and his concern. Pressing her lips together, she considered,  _Well, the worst he can do is say hurtful things and leave, and I don't_ _ **think**_ _he'll do either._ "All right," she decided finally, trying to steady her jittering leg. And when he took her hand, she focused on soaking up his unusually high body heat instead of on what she was about to recount.

"I don't remember my parents," she began, voice low even though there was no one around to eavesdrop. "It's been Hylla and me for as long as I can remember. I was born in Puerto Rico, and that was where we lived after our parents disappeared when I was three or so. We stayed with our neighbor for a little while. Hylla picked up odd jobs around town to help with the bills. It wasn't ideal, and it was a bad part of town, but it worked."

She took a deep breath to work up the strength to verbalize the next part. "There was this local gang— _Las Piratas_ , they called themselves—gaining ground. Drugs mostly. But they started more burglary-type stuff, especially the new recruits trying to prove themselves. One day when I was eight…" She swallowed hard. Both legs were jittering so hard she cracked her knee on the table, but the sting barely registered.

Leo scooted his chair toward her, leaning in to check her expression, making a soothing noise in the back of his throat. "Hey, it's really okay. You don't have to—"

Reyna shook her head no. She wanted to be able to say it out loud, hated that the Pirates had had that much power over her for so long. "When I was eight they came to our house," she said quickly, flatly. "They didn't expect a couple of young girls to be there. To try to fight." Her eyes pricked with needling tears; she blinked them away and pressed her nails into her palms. "We were nothing, of course. And they…

"They beat us, and separated us, and then me…"  _You can say the word,_  she told herself.  _The word's not the problem._  That didn't stop her throat from thickening up with those damn tears that threatened to spill over. Her voice cracked when she admitted, "They raped me." Twice at first, by a man who smelled like alcohol and had easily been old enough to be her father. Then after they'd gotten what they wanted from the house, they came back and got more of what they wanted from  _her_. And nothing, nothing she'd done—screaming, fighting, begging—made any difference.

" _Ohhhh,"_  he whispered, barely more than a breath. His voice sounded thick with tears, but she couldn't look at him.  _"Reyna."_

If she acknowledged his response, she might not be able to finish. She only backhanded some of the wetness from her eyes. "Hylla got ahold of a phone somehow, called for help. They bolted when they heard sirens. The police talked to us, promised to take care of it, but they didn't. I was… I couldn't handle being there. Or being around people. Long story short, a couple families helped us get the hell out of there.

"We moved to the States, tried to start over. We didn't have enough money for therapy or anything, and you couldn't detach me from Hylla for anything. But it helped, I guess. Better than staying." She bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted the tang of blood. "I left everything behind that I could—I don't even use my last name if I can help it. But I guess you can't really leave it. I've still had nightmares ever since. Insomnia problems, trust problems. And the 'touching thing.'"

"I didn't mean to joke," he said solemnly.

"I know." Long inhale, long exhale.  _Shhh. It's okay._  She rubbed up and down her arms. "So, yeah. That's… that's Puerto Rico. I met Jason about a year after that. And Hylla took her Amazon job my senior year of high school, left me to live with him and his family until we graduated and moved into our apartment." She threw up her hands, desperate to change topics. "And now we're here, and I think I'd like to talk about something else now."

"Yeah, yeah, sure, sure." He scrambled for an alternative. "You can grill me about whatever. Or we can get coffee, you want some coffee?"

"You know what, sure." She jumped to her feet, still jittery. "Can we run?"

"We can try," he agreed.

They speed-walked back upstairs, and once they made it outside, Reyna broke away from him, her feet pounding the sidewalk pavement as she sprinted for the student center. She made no attempt to pace herself. The wind cooled her skin; the jumping pulse of her heart eased the ache. She slowed just before the double doors, panting lightly, and she paced with her hands on her hips until Leo ran up.

"Did it help?" he asked between heavy breaths.

She thought about it, then bobbed her head. "Yes," she sighed.  _Thank God._  Slightly smelly but at least no longer close to crying, they took their place at the end of the line. From ordering their drinks to picking them up off the counter to walking back to the library the long way, they chatted, intentionally staying away from heavy topics. They discussed the odd drink names and a couple draped over each other on an armchair and the ducks alighting on the lake and a bike someone had stuck up in a tree.

They let themselves back into the library, and Reyna had gotten back up to a calm baseline. He balanced himself on two chair legs again, and she warned him that they were really going to have to talk fire now.

"All right," she said, taking a sip of her coffee and then folding her hands.  _Down to business._ "So you don't remember anything about the night of the fire in particular?"

He shook his curls at her. "No, ma'am, my memory bank is unfortunately empty on that account," he replied in a mock-proper tone. "Perchance, have you any forms I might fill out to certify this?"

 _Leo wouldn't know professional if it kicked him in the face and then introduced itself._ She swatted his shoulder. "Hush, you. I'm trying to keep things from spiraling away from our stated purpose."

"You're really not helping yourself here. You talk that way on purpose?" He slung one arm over the back of his chair and lurched toward the floor. She jumped, reaching to catch him, but he only grinned and adjusted his position to one less likely to land him on his butt.

She sank back down and frowned at him, more parental than anything. "We aren't discussing my good grammar. We're discussing you and your presumably alcohol-induced memory blackout on a night that ended in  _arson_. Are you  _really_  going to argue this with me?"

He sobered. All four chair legs hit the ground with a  _thunk_. "No, you're right. Sorry." He laced long, slender fingers together on the table top. "How can we make me remember?"

"I don't know," Reyna admitted. She considered this, tapping one fingertip on her bottom lip. "Well, what  _do_  you remember from that day?"

Leo rolled his shoulders, brow wrinkling. "I dunno, I mean, it's been, like, half a year."

"Try."

He squeezed his eyes shut and muttered something that sounded like " _You_  try." She shot him another black look, but he missed it. Finally he came up with something: "All that week I worked a lot. More than usual. But it was almost finals week, wasn't it?"

She mentally clocked back to springtime. "Yes, it was three weeks till the end of the semester."

"I had a lot of shop projects due around then." He cracked one eye at her. "You think Piper's right? That I was in Bunker Nine?"

"Could be," she allowed, reluctant to lead the witness.

He shook his head. "I just… When I try to think about, 'Hey, this is what happened the night the entire place caught fire, this is what I was doing,' everything's a big blank. Or I picture one thing and then realize that that was actually a different day." Dropping his head to the table, he banged his forehead a few times and groaned for so long it took up multiple syllables.

She reached out and glanced her fingers over his hair. "Don't hurt yourself. If you can't remember…" She almost said  _it'll be all right_ , but in reality he was the best lead they had at the moment, and it might  _not_  be all right. So she closed her mouth and just petted his hair.

Eventually his groan petered off into a whine and then concluded in a sigh, and he drew himself back upright. "What day was it?" he asked, which was not what she'd expected to come out of his mouth.

She had to think for a second, but then: "Friday."

"Okay," he muttered. "Spring semester, Fridays I had…" His brow crinkled. "Work at eight, class from eleven to three, then back to work from three to six. So it was after six I either stayed at work or went somewhere else and drunk-texted Piper. And then somehow got back to my room and passed out in work-y shop-y clothes."

Reyna clasped her hands under her chin and watched him struggle. She didn't know anything but what he could tell her; she hadn't even known he existed then. This, scarily, depended solely on Leo and his ability to push through the blackout.

"Piper was gone, she said." He huffed out a frustrated breath. "So after work I… I…" His fingers flicked in and out of his palms, rolling like a card trick, furious and desperate for motion.  _"Damn_  it!"

"Shh." She understood his frustration, but she also didn't want them to be thrown out of the library for loud swearing.

He fished through his pockets, looking for something.

"What is it?"

"I need my lighter." The words came out harsher than he meant them. "Can't find it."

 _Oh, whoops._  His lighter, the tool to contain his overactive need for sensory stimulation. She reached into her jacket pocket, pulled the very thing out, and offered it to him. "You dropped it in the station lobby when we were visiting Piper yesterday. I picked it up for you and forgot to give it back, sorry."

He accepted it, and the creases in his forehead smoothed a little. "It's okay." He looked down at it and, as if making sure he hadn't forgotten how, flicked it on and off a few times, each flame lasting a little longer than the one before it.

She stared, something niggling at the back of her mind. Leo played with that tiny portable fire in the most inappropriate places. The flame licked over his finger, and he barely reacted. The orange reflection in his dark eyes… "Are you sure…?" she started to ask.

Suddenly those eyes widened, and Leo dropped the lighter. "Oh my god." He stared at it, horrified.  _"It started in the shop."_


	28. Witness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the next-to-last chapter. It's been such a great ride, you guys! Thanks for sticking with "Obviously"!

 

" _Started in—?"_  Reyna choked on a profanity, torn between her horror and her need to keep her words family-friendly in public. "Do you remember  _how?"_

Equally horrified, Leo remained fixated on his lighter. "I just… I remember it blowing up in my face. This giant—" He shook his head and cut himself off before squeezing his eyes shut in a new attempt to work backward through the night.

She held her breath, wanting to press him for details but knowing full well that that could just make it harder to fish for the memory.

"I remember this huge flame blowing up in my face," he repeated. "I didn't mean for it to happen. What was I  _doing?_  I was…  _ughhh."_ He fisted his hands in his hair and continued, half to himself, "I hadn't wanted a big fire. Did I want a little one?"

Reyna's phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out and glanced at the screen:  _Incoming Call from Jason._  Quickly she swiped to accept the call and pressed the phone up to her ear. "Hey, I'm at the library," she whispered, instinct making her lower her voice, "and kind of in the middle of something. Can I call you right back?"

"Oh, sorry," Jason said immediately, lowering his voice as well even though he wasn't the one in danger of talking too loudly. "This won't take five minutes. Is that okay?"

Reyna glanced at Leo, who was still pulling out chunks of hair, and agreed, "Okay, really fast."

He cleared his throat. "Gwen finally texted me back. She didn't want to talk about it over the phone, but she said she'd meet us for coffee tonight at six."

"Great," she sighed. "Was there anything else?"

"Oh, Nico gave me his old map of Central campus. I don't know if it'll help all that much, but it might come in handy as a reference."

"Great," she repeated. "But why did you need to call me?" He could have easily texted her about those two minor events.

She heard Piper laughing in the background, and that was her answer.

"Tell that girl I'm going to kill her," she threatened, despite her tiny amused grin. "Talk to you later."

"Anything important?" Leo asked her after she hung up.

Reyna rolled her eyes as she shook her head. "No," she said, "just your best friend trying to catch us getting it on in the library."

He chortled. "She has a lot of faith."

"That's one way to put it."

"Should we go back, if they're done being sappy?"

"He didn't say they were," she considered, "but they must be if Piper suggested he call us for entertainment. Do you want to? I mean, will it help?"

He threw his hands up. "Who knows. We might as well. I can't seem to get anywhere anyways."

* * *

Leo thanked every god he could think of that Reyna didn't suggest they run back. He'd already destroyed his daily exercise quota with picking up Piper and then running for coffee. They only walked, even though it was still super fast. And he would have suggested they hold hands to conserve body heat except that that would have meant taking their hands out of their pockets, and it wasn't worth the chill.

She didn't talk much either, other than an offhand comment about not being ready for winter that didn't require a reply, thankfully. His head swirled, crowded, positively  _swarmed_  with clamoring memories running into and over each other. His shoulders scrunched up around his ears, and he was glad to feel the scratch of his sweater and jacket and scarf and hat. He counted the places they touched his skin, tried to focus on them. It kept him from flipping out even more.

Reyna bumped his shoulder with hers just before they crossed the road, and he glanced up to flash her a grateful half-smile. At least he hoped it looked grateful, and not pained or frustrated or mad or anything. Even though he  _was_  all those things, he didn't want to take it out on her.

Now that he was starting to remember, he was starting to wish it would all go away again. Everything seemed to spark ( _ha,_  he thought sarcastically,  _a pun I actually_ _ **didn't**_ _do on purpose_ ) a new detail. He looked at his feet, he got a snapshot of his grimy shoes from that night. He looked at a tree, he remembered running past a peeling birch.

But why couldn't he remember what he needed to?

They ducked inside the second they stepped foot on the porch, and he barely had time to shrug off his coat before getting nailed. "Have you remembered anything?" Jason asked him, already standing in the kitchen with Piper. "If you happened to be there, to see how it started, it could be a huge help."

Something about that phrasing caught him.  _They think I was in the_ _ **way**_ _of the fire,_  Leo realized suddenly, his stomach plummeting,  _not the_ _ **cause**_ _._ He himself wasn't so sure. Well, he wasn't going to lie. (If he'd learned anything, lying was worse than admitting bad stuff right away.) If they freaked, they freaked. They would be well within their rights.

"I do remember now," he said slowly, "sort of. Some of it's still missing. I'd gotten a test back that morning that I hadn't done too hot on, and I was pissing mad. So I went to work, and after my shift I went straight back to the workshop to keep busy. I had a shop project and a personal experiment going on, and one drink turned into two, turned into five." He avoided Reyna's gaze, knowing how that would sound to her. "That was prob'ly about when I texted Piper.

"Eventually I needed a little fire," he continued. "For the work. Plus it was kinda cold. I just started a little one. In a safety-tested fire pit. It should have been fine.

"But I remember… the smell of gasoline." He made a face. Though this part was fuzzy, he definitely remembered that smell. "Maybe I spilled some, I don't know. I'd been working so much, the place was a mess. And at that point  _I_  was a mess, a drunk mess." He felt himself blush at the admission, even though Piper had seen him plastered plenty of times, and now Reyna had seen it too. Moving on, he admitted, "I think I left for a minute, like, to pee or something. I came back, and all I remember is this  _bonfire_  blowing up in my face, big and orange and hot.

"After that, it's hazy again. I don't think I was  _in_  the fire—I didn't wake up with any unusual burns. Musta run back to the dorm and passed out. Didn't, uh, didn't get to go back to shop work, I guess, if the place burned up." He hated to joke about it, but pure habit was hard to shake. He sounded like it was a comedy routine; he felt anything but.

"So, wait," Piper stammered, looking a little lost and clutching her side like she'd been wounded, "you were—you  _were_  the one—?"

"I mean, I didn't start anything on purpose," he blurted, trying not to feel betrayed. He would have preferred a kick to the gut over that look on her face. That look on her face, and the match-striking resemblance to the first time he'd come out of a big fire unscathed and guilty. "If that's even where the fire started. It wasn't—the pictures weren't me. And I didn't—"

"What is it with you and this fire stuff?" Jason asked, half in exasperation. "You've always got that lighter around, and you just  _happened_  to set our microwave on fire—"

"Come on, that was an accident!" Leo protested, cheeks burning.

"—and now  _this?"_

He huffed and turned his face away.  _None of them know the whole story,_ he told himself _. That's the only reason they're pressing it._  When he spoke again, his voice hung heavy with more sobriety than he normally let them hear from him. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Hey, I already fessed up to stealing stuff," Piper pointed out. "Your turn, buddy. It's only fair."

He shot her a black look. "Shouldn't you be on my side?"

She bit out her reply: "Not if you started the Central fire."

"Wow. Ouch." He crossed his arms, but she didn't back down.

She waved him on, a distinctly chilly  _go on and tell us_  motion. He was tempted to turn around and leave, but with the way they were all looking at him right then, he figured that wouldn't turn out great for him. Definite nastiness there.

"I already told you about the foster homes," he said finally, begrudgingly. "The reason I was in the system—which Piper already knows—" He cast a little blame on her to make himself feel better. It didn't help. "—is that my mom died when I was five and my aunt, my only family, wouldn't take me."

"Why not?" she prompted coldly.

He clenched his jaw and glared at her. She  _knew_  what she was asking him to say. "Don't be such a—" He bit off the insult. She was his best friend, when all was said and done. So he didn't call names, but his words became clipped and freezing cold. "My aunt wouldn't take me because my mom died in a fire and everyone said it was my fault."

He watched the only reaction that mattered:

Brows drawing together, Reyna exhaled, long and pained, between her lips. The soft cords of her neck stood out as she swallowed. But at least she didn't ask if it had been true.

"It wasn't," he said forcefully. As much to convince himself as to convince them. "But what happened was… I have some problems processing through my senses, touch especially. Disorder called SPD. It was worse when I was little, I barely responded to anything. Pain, heat, cold, nothing. My mom and I were working on occupational therapy that morning, and I had a meltdown. Found a candle lighter, set a fire, and stuck my hand in 'cause I couldn't feel it."

Piper's angry face cracked and then dissolved into her concerned best-friend face. He'd mentioned his Sensory Processing Disorder to her before, briefly (it wasn't his favorite topic ever), but he'd never brought up the connection to his mom's death. The memory was little more than a few snapshots and the sound of her screams, and he tried to avoid it as much as possible.

"Of course she freaked out," he said flatly, hoping the forced sarcasm would cover up the mess of emotions roiling in his gut. "And she pulled me away, but something went wrong. The flame found something that acted as an accelerant." Because he'd been playing near a power source of some kind, or so he'd been told. He winced, remembering how as the orange roared to life she'd all but thrown him to safety, damning herself. "Place went up. I made it out—she didn't.

"My aunt thought it was me." The word  _diablo_  had followed him like a ghost for years. "So, foster system, Wilderness School, you guys know all that." He gave a mirthless laugh. "Guess it shouldn't have surprised me to find out I was connected to the damn Central fire, too. Isn't that just perfect."

They didn't comment on that. He didn't know whether or not he wanted them to.

"So SPD," Reyna said, sounding like she had an idea of what it entailed, either from his short description or from previous knowledge. "Your lighter helps you deal with that?"

"Yeah, I guess." He pulled it out, flipped it in the air, and caught it in his palm. No flame right now. "If I can feel the little jolt of the catch, the heat of the flame, I'm doing okay." Granted, it didn't eradicate the clumsiness or panic that overtook him when he went numb, but it at least helped him keep tabs on himself. He knew SPD was different for each person who had it, but for him, this was what worked. This was what kept him from sticking limbs in fire.

At least, it worked until he got so slobbering drunk he lost sensation.  _That,_  he realized now that he thought about it,  _was probably not one of my smarter habits to pick up. Maybe I ought to cut back._  Not only to cut down on blackouts and drunk-texting his friends, but more important, to give him the best possible chance to outmaneuver the SPD. And bonus, it might help him avoid accidentally triggering Reyna's Puerto Rico memories, too.

 _Good idea,_  he said to himself, resolving to follow up on it.  _Time to find a healthier outlet._

Regardless, there was still the glaring fact that, as far as he could tell, he'd started the Central fire. Reyna probably wouldn't want to be anywhere near him, trigger or no trigger. The four of them stood in silence, shifting their weight and trying to figure out what to say from here. Or at least that was what Leo was doing.  _Maybe the others already know and are waiting for me to figure it out. Wouldn't surprise me._

"You do have a history with dangerous fires," Reyna acknowledged finally, her voice gentle, "but the therapy fire wasn't your fault, and Central probably wasn't either. We have to keep looking into it."

He stared at her, half suspicious. This had to be a trick. No way could they honestly believe he  _hadn't_  created such massive disaster.

Piper was still pale, but she added, "Those photos Reyna found made it look intentional. You couldn't have put them up on that server-thing. And you didn't have any reason to blow up Central."

Jason looked over the map of Central that Nico had found for him. "And besides, it looks like those workshops were set off from the other buildings." He looked up, brow creased and eyes focused and concerned. "So, worst case scenario, you burned down Workshop Nine. That doesn't explain  _everything else."_

"What?" Leo blurted, confused.  _"You guys._  All I remember is the fire, pretty much. I might as well just turn myself in."

Jason shook his head. "No, look." He held up the paper.

Leo forced himself to look so he could guilt himself some more about burning down his best friend's campus home just because he wanted to drown a bad grade in cheap beer. He found Workshop Nine first, the little half-underground garage. It had always seemed like a long walk, and he'd always assumed that was because he was so out of shape, but now he looked at the big blank space separating it from the academic buildings and even some of the other workshops, and he realized it  _had_  been a good long walk. Easily a couple minutes away, with a wide gravel road curving all the way around the building, blocking it from the lawn as a safety precaution. Guilt still twisted inside his chest, but now confusion tugged at the knot. It had been easy to assume he'd just wrecked another good thing. But with that fire-resistant distance… even his self-pessimism had trouble following this logic.

"That whole place could have gone up," he muttered to himself, "and it wouldn't have been enough to reach the rest of campus."

Not on its own, at least.

* * *

Gwen met Jason and Reyna outside Nectar and Ambrosia at six, just late enough that most of the student population had gone either up to the cafeteria for dinner or back to the dorms for the evening. Other than the clanking of dishware and the screeching of the espresso machine, the lower level of the student center was quiet tonight. And Leo and Piper stayed back by the mailboxes so it would stay that way.  _I know she's nice and all,_  he had told the student gov pair when they protested that the troublemaking pair could stay to talk to the secretary,  _but niceness only goes so far._ He didn't trust their prank history not to bite them in the butt right when they needed a boon.

They had considered this and then suggested the Central transfers maybe stay out of sight. On the other side of the building. Leo and Piper had sent them both withering looks before leaving to hide.  _No need for them to be so gung ho about it,_ she had grumbled, and he had blown a raspberry in agreement.

But now, if they peeked their heads out at just the right angle, they could see Gwen standing against a column, talking to Jason and Reyna, and that was what mattered.

The secretary spoke softly, barely even moved her lips. Leo strained to hear and then groaned. He glanced at Piper and jerked a thumb forward, toward the inaudible conversation. "You wanna…?"

"Yeah," she whispered back, and as one they shuffled a little closer.

The bookstore was closed for the night, but they ducked behind the entrance just in time to hear Gwen say, "I didn't know it was going to be like that. I have friends there, y'know? It was supposed to be all in fun. A little silly prank."

"When did you realize there were other plans?" Reyna prompted, maintaining the same subtle quiet.

Gwen shifted her weight from foot to foot. "After we got there, the group kind of split. It was only supposed to be for efficiency's sake, half on one end, half on the other, just to be quick, but I dunno, it seemed like more than that."

"More how?"

"I went with Octavian's group. A, because I trust him slightly less far than I can throw him, and B, because he was the one I knew best out of everyone." She chewed her bottom lip until a bright dot of blood bloomed on it. "The other group, what little I saw of them, weren't acting like anything was wrong. Joking around, laughing, telling each other to shut up in case anyone was around to hear us. Our group seemed more serious, I guess. Less laughing, more shushing.

"I didn't know where we were going—everything was kind of up in the air, as far as  _I_  could tell—but Octavian knew, or at least did a good job pretending he did. He was the one directing us in the dark." She wrung her hands.

Jason touched her on the shoulder reassuringly. "Do you know where you ended up?"

She shrugged, still tense. "I don't know the campus. I got so turned around, I barely even knew which direction we came from. And it was so dark, with us sticking to the shadows, I could barely see the people around me."

Shuffling noises came from the far hallway, and though Leo jumped and craned his neck, from his current position he couldn't see anyone there. Piper smacked him on the arm and pointed for him to pay attention.

"What happened then?" Jason asked.

Gwen rubbed her arms briskly as if warding off a bad feeling. "Our half got a little split up," she said. "I fell behind trying to figure out where we were, lost sight of Octavian and the other couple people in the front with him. Some of his hallmates, I think. And then once I caught up, they had—"

"Why is traffic so backed up down here?" drawled the world's most annoying voice. "Some of us have places to be."

The secretary jumped back a little and looked past Leo and Piper, towards the voice. Her eyes widened, and she stepped into Jason's shadow like she wanted nothing better than to run right then. And then she darted up the stairs, out of sight. Reyna gave a little sigh of frustration.

Leo rolled his eyes into the next century. "Good Lord, Octavian," he snapped, "nobody even likes you—"

When he cast a disparaging glance that way, though, a couple wires in his head connected at the sight of the jaundiced scarecrow. A few new visual memories, that stupid  _voice_ —"You piece of  _shit!"_  Leo yowled, and everyone jumped and looked his way.

Octavian took a step backward, eyes narrowed. "Excuse me?"

"I mean, you're not wrong, Leo," Piper offered, "but, uh…?" She cast him a confused look, asking what had brought on the outburst.

He was still trying to sort it out himself. "I don't… exactly… You were there, right before the fire!" he shouted at the taller guy. "I remember that at least, 'cause I was definitely not interested in talking to you—"

"I can't fathom a universe in which I want to talk to you either," Octavian snapped.

Leo pressed the heels of his hands to his temples, willing the snapshot memories to make more sense. Remembering a drunk night was like trying to remember a dream. He could picture pointing hands, a smug stride seen from behind. But when he pushed for more, like having the wrong song stuck in his head, he kept falling back into the fire, the fire, the fire.

What had  _happened_  to make everything go up in flames?

A hand touched his back, and he thought it was Piper's until he heard Reyna's voice beside him. "Did you remember something new?" she asked under her breath.

He nodded wildly, glad he could at least still feel her.

Her nails scratched gently over his spine, and she addressed Octavian coolly. "You of all people should know we're not going to let go of this until we've settled it. If you did have something to do with the Central fire, you should just work with us."

"You might get off easier that way," Jason suggested.

"Yeah, 'cause he's a skinny white boy," Piper muttered.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Octavian snapped at the student gov pair (and conspicuously ignored Piper's comment). "That's ridiculous. I wasn't even…" He almost finished with  _there_ , but then he paused, reconsidered, and amended, "That trip was a joke. You know that already. Just a harmless prank."

Reyna gave not an inch. "Not so harmless when you were taking pictures  _for posterity,_ was it?" The sarcasm was clipped and clear.

This made his eyebrows jump. "Those were for the good of the newspaper, yes," he agreed, but he'd lost just a fraction of his confidence, and his voice wavered on the final word. "There was nothing I could do to help, so I did my journalism friends a favor. Believe it or not, I do have friends," he added with more than a dash of snark.

Her gaze narrowed. Leo was finally managing to get everything sorted in his head, and he looked up just in time to catch the chill in her icy glare. She clenched her jaw, unable to form coherent words, and he was struck by the untimely urge to kiss her.

 _Bad Leo,_  he chastised himself.  _Timing. Timing is critical. Also not being in the middle of the student center having a giant standoff with, like, everyone._

"You  _were_  in the shop, though, Octo-Man," he said, mostly to get himself back on track. The stupid nickname made the annoying student gov officer scowl, thus serving its purpose in life. "What the hell, man?"

"No, I wasn't," he denied. "We didn't go inside any of the buildings. The fire started before we'd done anything, and none of us were near it."

Leo made a sarcastic laughing noise that ended up sounding like he was hacking up a popcorn kernel stuck in the back of his throat. "Uh, my memory ain't what it used to be, but I remember that. I was all, 'What're you doing here?' and you were all, 'Well,  _you_  won't be missing anything.' Like I was going to forget everything."

"And didn't you?" Octavian asked, a beat too easily, smugly. And then his mouth snapped shut as he realized his mistake.

Piper now had gone wide-eyed with outrage. "Thought you didn't go inside," she repeated his earlier words back to him.

He backtracked. "I thought you meant an academic building. I stepped into a shed by accident."

"You don't  _accidentally step_  into Bunker Nine," Leo shot back.

"Yeah, I found someone's ID on the ground outside the door and thought I'd bring it in for them if they were still inside."

"No, you didn't—somebody forced the door open. You're just making stuff up."

Octavian went on the offensive then. "You aren't a reliable witness. You're biased against me personally for some reason, and besides, you have a remarkable drinking habit that lands you in trouble. Nobody trusts a drunk's memory."

"I will," Reyna said with such cold conviction that Leo believed her.

Octavian's expression froze somewhere between disgust and disbelief. "Well, that's… your prerogative, I suppose. I didn't ask you to side with me. I know what happened; he's forgotten everything. And nothing you all come up with will ever be enough to convince anyone otherwise."

This set her back, and Leo watched her draw into herself to think. "Come on, you guys," she said finally, and she strode towards the stairs without looking back to make sure they were following. He stumbled after her, and Piper's and Jason's longer legs let them pass him without even trying.

"Reyna!" he called at her stiff back, but she didn't turn around, and he tried to ignore the kick of hurt in his chest. Had Octavian really convinced her to take his side over  _Leo's?_ She had said she believed him, and then as soon as the dirty officer put up a little resistance, she gave up. He knew for a fact she had more fight in her than that, so what had changed her mind?

"Reyna," he managed again, and finally she turned around, crossing her arms stiffly over her chest and sitting down sharply on one of the out-of-the-way ugly couches. Piper and Jason sat down beside her, looking concerned. Leo trotted up and just kind of collapsed on the carpet at their feet.  _"Mi reina,_  what's going on? What was that down there?"

"He did it," she spat, which was the opposite of what he'd expected to hear. "He was given responsibility, the school trusted him, and he went and—" She swallowed the hateful words back, brow creased and lips thin.

"Wait, so you're not giving up?" he asked, feeling stupid even as the words came out.

She fixed him with the most dangerous look he'd ever seen her wear—and he'd seen her wear a  _lot_  of dangerous looks this semester. "Leo Valdez," she said slowly, "do you think you can tell a cop what you remember from that night?"


	29. In the End

Leo had kind of hoped Reyna had been joking, yet here he sat in the damn police station, in the back room with Officer Kang, who at least seemed to be a decent person. Well, better than some of the other officers he’d had less-than-pleasant experiences with, not that that was a high standard to meet.

But Reyna had told him to play nice and to just tell Kang what he remembered, so he was. He even cut down on his hilarious editorializing just to show how nice he was playing. He’d just finished summarizing his Incredibly Awful Day and moved on to the Incredibly Awful Night, which was infinitely clearer in his head now that he’d fit in Octavian, the missing puzzle piece: “I had a couple drinks while I was working in Workshop Nine, and normally it didn’t go down so bad, but it wasn’t sitting right for some reason.”

Kang only listened, her dark, angular eyes so serious he wanted to squirm.

Leo made a self-comforting flicking motion with his fingers and tried to look law-abiding. _Be Jason,_ he coached himself, _and be Reyna._ He sat up a little straighter and aimed for a neutrally positive expression. _Nailed it._ “I went to go to the bathroom, and then I heard something weird, like the door being forced open.” To clarify how odd this had been, he explained, “The door locked automatically, and anyone who needed in—me, mostly—just held up their student ID and it opened for you. And since this place was maintained by the shop students and a couple engineering girls—we’re all good with mechanics—the lock never misbehaved. So you didn’t need to force anything ever.

“When I went to go check it out, I smelled gasoline, and I saw this group of older guys, upperclassmen definitely, rummaging through one of our storage spaces. They were all kind of turned toward this tall, skinny white guy that looked like he could’ve keeled over sick. Octavian Augur. I barely knew him, but I did recognize him. You don’t forget a face like that,” he cracked, smirking a little.

She didn’t react.

He smothered the grin. “Sorry. Okay, so even with a bunch of beer in me, I knew they weren’t supposed to be in there, so I called him on it. I asked him what they were doing there, but all he said was that it looked like I ‘wouldn’t be missing anything.’ Like I was gonna black out the whole thing, I was so drunk.” _He wasn’t totally wrong,_ Leo had to admit, _but he was just wrong enough that he’s gonna have to eat his words._ Then he realized he might have died in that fire, and that thought spawned an alternate interpretation: that he wouldn’t be missing anything in life if he died that night.

“He’d picked up a couple shop tools,” he continued, feeling a sudden chill. “Gave them to the other guys. One of them was holding the big cans of gasoline I was smelling. I thought it was kinda weird, but to be honest, I really _really_ had to pee, so I told them to put the stuff back and scram, and I ran to the bathroom. I figured they’d be gone when I finished. Most people don’t like hanging out with mechanics while they work.” He had mistakenly assumed that they were there to hang out and that they would listen to him at all.

“Do you remember what all he took specifically?” Kang asked, her first question since “Do you want a cup of water?” ten minutes ago.

Leo sucked in his cheeks, thought for a minute, and then exhaled in a huff. “The gas cans. One of our biggest combination wrenches, and a good axe. And a couple flame torches. Maybe a couple other things, but I couldn’t get a good look at those.” He wanted to add a heavily sarcastic _not suspicious at all_ comment, but he didn’t know how much Kang would put up with, and if he got them kicked out of the station now, Reyna would have his head on a platter for dinner.

“Could you identify those particular tools if you saw them again?”

As politely as he could without dissolving into sugar water, he clarified, “Well, I wouldn’t see those _specific_ ones again, ’cause they probably got burned up. But I know _tools,_ and I remember those.”

Officer Kang glanced up at him. “Do you know them well enough to use them yourself?”

Was she accusing him of making it up to cover his own tracks? He almost got offended, but then he remembered she was just doing her job. He gave himself legal counsel so good it was almost professional: _Chill._ “I do,” he said. “I have to for work.”

She didn’t freak out or arrest him or anything; she just said, “Okay.” She made a note and then set her pen aside. “So what happened after your bathroom run?”

Leo’s fingers curled with displeasure at the memory. “I came out of the bathroom when I smelled even more gasoline, and I pretty much ran into this giant fire. Right in my face. I hauled ass, but someone—probably Octavian again, or one of his guys—had banged at the automatic sprinkler system that should have gone off, so it kind of spurted a little water but didn’t work like it was supposed to. That place was toast.” Despite the serious situation, he almost cackled at the unintended pun. _That’s two in one day._ Then he reminded himself about the importance of _timing_ and got back on track.

“I got out,” he said, “but I don’t remember how exactly… I remember a lot of smoke, smacking my head on some pipe and then losing feeling in most of my body. But I’m pretty sure that part was SPD,” he offered in a lower tone, “not the smoke inhalation or concussion. Well, maybe it was partly the alcohol.

“Anyway, somehow I made it to my dorm and passed out. Next morning, I didn’t remember a thing. Or if I did, it was like a dream. I had a ‘what was I just thinking about?’ moment and then it was gone. And no one ever asked me if I’d been there, so I just didn’t think about it for long enough, and eventually I just forgot.” He winced, realizing how lame that sounded. “Then when my best friend and my girlfriend and her best friend–slash–my best friend’s boyfriend—it’s confusing, I know,” he added sheepishly at Kang’s quick double-blink. “Anyway, when they started pressing me about that night, I realized I didn’t remember it, so I started digging, and with a couple different triggers, I started to remember. Loudly and painfully.” He made a face and tugged at his hair, relishing the sparks of sensation along his scalp. Quickly, as a relevant side note, he told her about the confrontation in the student center, making sure to highlight the sketchy comments.

Kang flipped her notebook closed and rested one finger over the recorder’s Off button. “Anything else?”

“Well, I mean, other than the _super suspicious_ way he kept changing his story and making little jabs about me not being able to remember… No. That’s all I know about the Central fire.”

She turned off the recorder. A couple minutes later, a secretary brought them the transcription of his testimony, and he signed it. Once he handed the paper to her, she said, “Thank you for coming to us.”

He jumped to his feet and then realized that made him look too eager to leave, so he tried to stretch a little, lean against the table like he just loved cops. “Are you gonna be able to do anything?”

 “We’ll certainly look into it,” she assured him, “and if your story matches up with what we find, we’ll definitely bring the arsonists to justice.”

“Okay,” he said, “great.” And even though he worried that it had been too long since the fire, that Octavian and his people had had too long to cover their tracks, that the investigation should have picked up on all this originally anyway, he held his head high and thanked Officer Kang for her time and followed her out to the lobby where his three best friends waited anxiously to hear if his case had been well received.

“We’ll let you know if we need anything more from you,” the cop told them as she let them out.

Piper looked like Leo felt—like they were putting their trust in a system that had failed them more than once before. And Reyna looked like she was itching to have control of the investigation back in her presidential hands. It was Jason’s solid, reassuring presence that got them all out of there in one piece without blowing a gasket and ruining everything they’d worked for.

“We’re just going to have to trust them to do the best job they can,” he said as they loaded back into his car, and there was a collective sigh of reluctant agreement.

Leo had little faith in the justice system, but he hoped. All through the next day, and the next, and then the week after that, he hoped. He hoped his law-abiding friends were right; he hoped the cops would look harder this time; he hoped that _something_ would show up that would clinch the case for them.

AU Week came and went with no news. Once, Leo had to come to the station again to answer some more questions about Workshop Nine, but nothing came of that either. They had all but resigned themselves to having tried and failed when, just before classes dismissed early for Thanksgiving weekend, they saw red and blue lights dancing against the student center. The four of them ran up just in time to see Kang and some of her fellow cops lead Octavian and three upperclassmen out of the student center and into the police cars.

One of the upperclassmen hung his head, and Octavian and the other students were blasting him with glares. After Kang slammed the last door shut, she saw the cluster of four and walked over to them.

“Thank you for coming forward,” she said, holding Leo’s gaze especially. “Thanks to your testimony, we had reason to look deeper into some inconsistencies in the original investigation. We caught a break, and one of the students confessed that his group ‘encouraged’ the small work fire to take over your workshop and then set other buildings on fire right afterward. He told us everything.”

“Rea—?” Piper froze with her lips parted in shocked joy, her eyes beginning to shine wetly even when she tried to blink it away. Her lips moved, but no words came out.

Amazed, Leo sent up a silent prayer of thanks for guilty consciences. “Did he say how they knew I was going to be in there that night?”

“Actually,” Kang told him, “it sounds like that wasn’t part of the original plan. The student said it had made him uncomfortable—enough to talk when we questioned him.”

Apparently not enough to keep the jerks from going through with it in the first place, though. “Huh,” he said; he thought that was a lot nicer than his other option, which was way less family-friendly. He could hardly believe it: sheer bad luck. Well, bad for him and for the arsonists, but good for the investigation. At least it had worked out in the end.

“Looks like a few university employees might have turned a blind eye, too. Even reduced tuition for transfers so no one would complain.” She shook her head. “We won’t be playing favorites this time.”

 _University employees?_ Leo glanced at Jason, who had relaxed into relief. He faintly recollected the vice president once saying something about Octavian being related to a department head and working for someone even higher up. And Jason hadn't been allowed to talk about the transfer details even though he hadn't known who was behind it, behind the suspicious activity. _Ooooh, the scarecrow done messed up,_ he thought gleefully. _Nobody’s getting out of this one. Not even the big shots._

The cop shifted back toward the string of cars with their lights still flashing. “I’ll let you know when we need you as a court witness, Leo. You kids have a good day.” She waved and left them.

“Was she serious?” Piper breathed shakily, backhanding a tear or two from her eyes. “It’s really happening. I can’t believe we…” She couldn’t take her eyes off the cars until they’d driven out of the parking lot and disappeared.

Jason kissed the top of her head. “Congratulations.” She had waited so long to see Central avenged. He cast his own best friend a smile too—the two of them had kept secrets, investigated discrepancies, and in the end even dared to trust someone else to take care of the problem. They’d earned the victory just as much.

Reyna took Leo’s hand, and he could have danced. She cast him a small, tired, but satisfied smile. “We got them,” she whispered. “We got them.”

* * *

Early-December snow drifted gently down from thick grey clouds, forming a thin sheet over the hard, brown ground. Huddled inside the student center at the bar alongside Nectar and Ambrosia, the four held the thick World Myth essays just returned through campus mail. The papers were folded in half and stapled to hide whatever letter Mr. D had penned at the tops. The grades weren’t online yet, so this would be the big reveal.

“Remember,” Reyna said firmly, “none of us could possibly have gotten an F, and that’s the only way to fail the class at this point. No matter what the grade is, we’ll pass.” If barely.

“But,” Piper contradicted her, only half in jest, “we could have gotten C’s and totally bombed our semester GPAs.”

Reyna glared. “It’s not likely.” But it was possible, and nervousness twisted her stomach. She treasured her high GPA and wanted to have a 4.0 to show her sister when they visited over Christmas break.

Piper and Leo exchanged a look. “Maybe not for _you,”_ he teased his lady love, “but we’ve seen our share of C’s. And F’s.” He pretended to consider this. “Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure the only reason we’re doing okay this semester is because we’ve been hanging around you guys. Following _‘rules’_ —“” He made air quotes around the fake-derisive word. “—and _‘studying’_ and being _‘decent human beings.’”_

“Oh, did they write that on your Wilderness School report too?” Piper asked him, sounding surprised. “‘Seems incapable of acting like a decent human being’? I thought they were just making fun of me.”

“Nope, me too.”

“Cool.”

They fist-bumped.

Jason and Reyna exchanged the long-suffering looks of saints. “Why do we put up with this?” she sighed.

He tapped his chin. “Because they’re cute,” he suggested, and she shrugged in resigned agreement.

Piper and Leo grinned winningly.

“Anyway,” Reyna redirected them, “the papers. On three?”

The others nodded.

“One—two—three.”

Four papers snapped out of their staples and unfolded. Piper gave a pleased little gasp, and Leo pretended to stumble backward. “No way.”

Jason wore a tiny smile as he flipped through his essay, and Reyna herself brightened at the purple _A_ scrawled at the top of her title page.

“Damn,” Piper breathed. “I’m going to buy Annabeth dinner.” The architecture major had proofread their papers for them in exchange for a few cups of free coffee. “Or a _house.”_

“As long as you _buy_ it,” Jason clarified, and she smacked him on the arm.

“I promised,” she said. Then, after a moment: “How exactly did you think I was gonna steal a _house?”_

“I have faith,” he said, which was either a reassurance that he trusted her not to revert or an answer to the question. Reyna wasn’t totally sure which. Maybe both.

“You know, Annabeth’s proof couldn’t make a bad paper good,” she pointed out to the pair that still seemed in shock. “Those grades are you guys. You did this. Good job.”

Positively glowing at that, Leo did a little victory dance and then, because he wasn’t allowed to kiss her in public, took her hand and squeezed it.

Piper and Jason, of course, had no qualms about public displays of affection themselves, so they shared a quick kiss—quick by their standards. When neither showed any sign of letting up, Reyna not-so-subtly glanced at her watch. “Don’t you two have somewhere to be?” she prompted.

They broke apart and backhanded their mouths in sync. “Oh, yeah,” Jason said, not sounding particularly thrilled, and Piper grabbed her bag of fresh clothes that had been sitting behind the counter.

“Gimme five minutes,” she told her boyfriend before darting off to the bathroom to change.

“Why does it matter if she’s wearing her coffee shop uniform to meet my dad and stepmom?” he asked Reyna. “She always looks great.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Think for a second,” she said. “It’ll come to you.”

A moment passed with his forehead crinkled. “Oh,” he said finally, startling a little at the reasoning that had finally made its way into his head: 1) his dad was the university president and 2) Piper was serious about Jason and therefore wanted to make a good impression on his family.

“Yeah, _oh,”_ Reyna teased him. Jason’s relationship with his parents was tense enough that this meeting, an attempt to mend the bridge, might not make much difference in the long run, but at least they were making the effort. She respected them for that.

He glanced at the bathroom, from which his girlfriend hadn’t yet emerged. “Did I tell you I’m meeting her dad next week?” he asked in an undertone.

Leo laughed. Cackled, really.

Reyna ignored this. “Yes, you did,” she told her best friend, “and you’ll be wonderful.”

Jason sucked in a long, uncertain breath. “I hope so.”

“I know so.” She patted him on the head just as Piper ran back up, panting a little but dressed to impress in a black peplum dress, lace-patterned tights, and short-heeled black boots. She’d thrown her hair up in a short ponytail, but one tendril had fallen out; Reyna tucked it back in for her.

“Thanks.” Piper tucked a hand into the crook of Jason’s arm and tried to calm herself down. “Okay, we should probably go, then, I guess.”

“Good luck,” Leo joked in his worst _you’ll need it_ voice.

Reyna swatted him. “It’s going to be fine,” she reassured the suddenly pale Piper. “You’ll wow them.”

She didn’t seem completely convinced. As if trying to get her going before she backed out completely, Jason led her toward the doors. Reyna saw him kiss her on the top of the head before they left the building.

Leo sucked down the last of his coffee and then tossed the empty cup at the trash can, crowing when it made it in. “Basketball champ!” he cheered himself. “Wow, what skill. I’m so good at that. Goin’ pro.”

“It was two feet away from you,” said Reyna.

 _“Pro,”_ he repeated, and she laughed.

She finished her hot chocolate and asked, “Are you ready to go look at those places?” His lease on the shed-house was almost up, and between the two of them, they’d lined up a few tours of little cheap local options that would hopefully be budget-friendly _and_ have decent living conditions.

He brightened. “Yeah. You still want to come with?”

“Of course,” she said primly. “Who else would keep you on track?”

Pouting his lower lip in grudging agreement, he pointed at her. “Rude, but true.”

“What are you going to do without me over break?” she teased, referring to her upcoming trip to visit Hylla in Seattle that unsettled her with, for once, more excitement than anxiety.

He pretended to wipe away a tear. “Cry a lot, probably.”

They headed outside, climbed into Festus, and drove to the first appointment, a one-room apartment just outside the town limits. The landlord, who was supposed to lead the tour, wasn’t there just yet, so they stayed in the warm car until she showed.

“Remember,” Reyna encouraged him, “these aren’t your be-all end-all. It’s okay to live somewhere less-than-pristine when you need to, or you can move in with us too. No one’s going to judge you.” The tours today might turn out not to work with his income, which would mean he’d need to pick another option for his living situation. There was no reason for him to feel ashamed of being tight on money, and she reminded him of that every chance she got.

Leo nodded. “I know. But I’m hoping something’ll work out.”

“Something will,” she promised.

He fiddled with the radio and then glanced at her with a clear change of subject in mind. “Does this count as being in private?” he asked.

Snorting, she glanced around. No one in the area that she could see. “I suppose,” she allowed, “but not for long.”

He grinned, and the dimples that popped out made her smile as well. “Kiss time?” he asked through the impossible grin.

“Kiss time,” she confirmed, and she popped her seat belt and leaned over to the driver’s seat to press her lips to his. He laughed a little in delight at her initiating but didn’t waste any of the little time they had to themselves. Though neither of them were naturally talented kissers, they were both more than willing to hone their skills through practice. His slender fingertips wove into the underside of her casual braid, tracing tingling lines up her scalp. Inhaling at the touch, she shifted to place one hand against his door, and when he mumbled something teasing that sounded like overdone-French _hon hon hon,_ she tugged playfully at his hair with the other. “You’re such a dork,” she whispered.

He crinkled his nose. “Yeah, but it’s worked for me so far. And,” he added with a trickster gleam in his eyes, “it seems to be working for you too.”

She couldn’t help the stupidly sappy smile that overcame her. Despite their many differences, she wouldn’t choose anyone else. “Obviously,” she agreed.

 


End file.
